near dark to go by the moor tops, so I made off towards a cottage in the
next clough, where an old quarry-man lived, called "Jone o'Twilter's."
The pack-horse road led by the place. Once there, I knew that I could
spend a pleasant hour with the old folk, and, after that, be directed by
a short cut down to the great highway in the valley, from whence an
hour's walk would bring me near home. I found the place easily, for I
had been there in summer. It was a substantial stone-built cottage, or
little farm-house, with mullioned windows. A stone-seated porch,
white-washed inside, shaded the entrance; and there was a little barn
and a shippon, or cow-house attached. By the by, that word "shippon,"
must have been originally "sheep-pen." The house nestled deep in the
clough, upon a shelf of green land, near the moorland stream. On a rude
ornamental stone, above the threshold of the porch, the date of the
building was quaintly carved, "1696," with the initials, "J. S.," and
then, a little lower down, and partly between these, the letter "P.," as
if intended for "John and Sarah Pilkington." On the lower slope of the
hill, immediately in front of the house there was a kind of kitchen
garden, well stocked, and in very fair order. Above the garden, the wild
moorland rose steeply up, marked with wandering sheep tracts. From the
back of the house, a little flower garden sloped away to the edge of a
rocky back. The moorland stream rushed wildly along its narrow channel,
a few yards below; and, viewed from the garden wall, at the edge of the
bank, it was a weird bit of stream scenery. The water rushed and roared
here; there it played a thousand pranks; and there, again, it was full
of graceful eddies; gliding away at last over the smooth lip of a worn
rock, a few yards lower down. A kind of green gloom pervaded the watery
chasm, caused by the thick shade of trees overspreading from the
opposite bank. It was a spot that a painter might have chosen for "The
Kelpie's Home."