aven Dale, there
lived a miner who had no term for his place of abode. He lived, he said,
under Wardlow Cop, and that contented him.

His house was one of those little, solid, gray limestone cottages, with
gray flagstone roofs, which abound in the Peak. It had stood under that
lofty precipice when the woods which now so densely fill the valley were
but newly planted. There had been a mine near it, which had no doubt
been the occasion of its erection in so solitary a place; but that mine
was now worked out and David Dunster, the miner, now worked at a mine
right over the hills in Miller's Dale. He was seldom at home, except at
night, and on Sundays. His wife, besides keeping her little house, and
digging and weeding in the strip of garden that lay on the steep slope
above the house, hemmed in with a stone wall, also seamed stockings for
a framework-knitter in Ashford, whither she went once or twice in the
week.

They had three children, a boy and two girls. The boy was about eight
years of age; the girls were about five and six. These children were
taught their lessons of spelling and reading by the mother, among her
other multifarious tasks; for she was one of those who are called
regular plodders. She was quiet, patient, and always doing, though never
in a bustle. She was not one of those who acquire a character for vast
industry by doing every thing in a mighty flurry, though they contrive
to find time for a tolerable deal of gossip under the plea of resting a
bit, and which "resting a bit" they always terminate by an exclamation
that "they must be off, though, for they have a world of work to do."
Betty Dunster, on the contrary, was looked on as rather "a slow coach."
If you remarked that she was a hard-working woman, the reply was, "Well,
she's always doing--Betty's work's never done; but then she does na
hurry hersen." The fact was, Betty was a thin, spare woman, of no very
strong constitution, but of an untiring spirit. Her pleasure and rest
were, when David came home at night, to have his supper ready, and to
sit down opposite to him at the little round table, and help him, giving
a bit now and then to the children, that came and stood round, though
they had had their suppers, and were ready for bed as soon as they had
seen something of their "dad."

David Dunster was one of those remarkably tall fellows that you see
about these hills, who seem of all things the very worst made men to
creep into the little mol