Many a Tear

I first heard the name of Margaret Higgs one gloomy afternoon, when
passing over the Chase by Tydenham, with Severn (they don't say "the"
Severn there) trailing itself away through a vale of haze far down on
my right. The aged clergyman I was making the journey with showed me
the mass of rags and grey locks, where the woman sat alone on a rock
on the Chase, saying to me---"Mark that woman, a remarkable being, I
assure you, a woman who during sixteen years has plumbed even the
deeps of human woe; for I say that if ever the arm of the Almighty
bared itself to be known openly in the affairs of men, it was in that
life. There, like a pine blighted by the lightning's wrath, sits
Margaret now, a living pledge of that Power which governs the world."

He spoke with no little solemnity, though I must say that when he went
on to tell me the facts, he left me utterly unconvinced of this "arm
of the Almighty"; and I hope that by this time he, too, has nobler
thoughts with regard to Margaret Higgs.