thy tea and such-like pig's-wesh. It's all very well
for women; but a man, Betty, a man mun ha' a sup of real stingo, lass.
He mun ha' summut to prop his ribs out, lass, as he delves through th'
chert and tood-stone. When tha weylds th' maundrel (the pick), and I
wesh th' dishes, tha shall ha' th' drink, my wench, and I'll ha' th'
tea. Till then, prithee let me aloon, and dunna bother me, for it's no
use. It only kicks my monkey up."

And Betty found that it was of no use; that it did only kick his monkey
up, and so she let him alone, except when she could drop in a persuasive
word or two. The mill-owners at Cress brook and Miller's Dale had
forbidden any public-house nearer than Edale, and they had more than
once called the people together to point out to them the mischiefs of
drinking, and the advantages to be derived from the very savings of
temperance. But all these measures, though they had some effect on the
mill people, had very little on the miners. They either sent to
Tideswell or Edale for kegs of beer to peddle at the mines, or they went
thither themselves on receiving their wages.

And let no one suppose that David Dunster was worse than his fellows, or
that Betty Dunster thought her case a particularly hard one. David was
"pretty much of a muchness," according to the country phrase, with the
rest of his hard-working tribe, which was, and always had been, a
hard-drinking tribe; and Betty, though she wished it different, did not
complain just because it was of no use, and because she was no worse off
than her neighbors.

Often when she went to "carry in her hose" to Ashford, she left the
children at home by themselves. She had no alternative. They were there
in that solitary valley for many hours playing alone. And to them it was
not solitary. It was all that they knew of life, and that all was very
pleasant to them. In spring, they hunted for birds'-nests in the copses,
and among the rocks and gray stones that had fallen from them. In the
copses built the blackbirds and thrushes; in the rocks the firetails;
and the gray wagtails in the stones, which were so exactly of their own
color, as to make it difficult to see them. In summer, they gathered
flowers and berries, and in the winter they played at horses, kings, and
shops, and sundry other things in the house.

On one of these occasions, a bright afternoon in autumn, the three
children had rambled down the glen, and found a world of amusement in
being