Nicholas Higgins Timeline and Summary

Nicholas first shows up when he meets Margaret Hale on a road just outside of Milton. He thanks Margaret when she gives his daughter Bessy a bouquet of flowers.
Later on, Nicholas shows up when Margaret starts visiting his daughter Bessy. He isn't hopeful about Bessy's chances for survival, although Margaret tries to be upbeat.
Bessy eventually dies, and Nicholas blames the Milton cotton factory she worked in. He claims that inhaling all that cotton ruined her lungs.
As a union leader, Nicholas Higgins plays a big role in Milton's workers' strike. The strike goes sideways, though, when a man name Boucher instigates a riot outside Thornton's house. With public opinion no longer on the workers' side, Higgins has to let the strike fizzle.
With the strike over, Higgins tries to take care of Boucher's family. Boucher has killed himself and left a large family with no one to feed them. The big problem is that no employer in Milton wants to hire Higgins because they all think he's a troublemaker.
Acting on Margaret Hale's advice, Higgins goes to Mr. Thornton personally to ask for work. Thornton blows him off at first, but then reconsiders and hires him.
For the rest of the book, we hear that things go fairly well between Thornton and Higgins. They bump heads a lot, but it seems like this kind of relationship works well for both of them.