March 1880

It was her father's kiss to her cheek that brought the tears. Not the little hug that Becky managed before she returned to playing with the mother cat and her kittens out near the barn. Nor the kiss of her mother as she told her elder daughter to take care, to write as often as she could, and warned her off young footmen who'd be looking to steal a kiss behind a closed door. No, it was her father's kiss that left young Elsie Hughes in tears as she boarded the train that took her away from home from the first time and would rarely take her home again.

She was the daughter who looked so much like him, who watched for him to come in from a hard day in the fields, and gave him a fierce hug as he lifted her in his arms. She and Becky had sat at his and their mother's feet as he told stories of faraway places, imaginary dragons, fairies, and all manner of mythical creatures. Elsie listened as he talked of politics, his life as boy, and how his grandfather's father fought against English oppression.

She loved him and he'd always been her greatest champion.

He loaded her tattered case that held her clothes, shoes, her Bible, and some family pictures onto the train and then took her hands in his. Elsie held on tightly to the work toughened hands of her father. With one final kiss, Daibhidh Hughes put Elsie on the train bound for Yorkshire that day. He told her to make something of herself. To forget farming life, the hardships that it brought, to see a bit of the world, and to live her own life.

It was the last time that she saw her father alive.