CHAPTER VII

HARD IT IS TO CLIMB

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So many a winter night went by in a hopeful and pleasant manner, with
the hissing of the bright round bullets, cast into the water, and the
spluttering of the great red apples which Annie was roasting for me. We
always managed our evening's work in the chimney of the back-kitchen,
where there was room to set chairs and table, in spite of the fire
burning. On the right-hand side was a mighty oven, where Betty
threatened to bake us; and on the left, long sides of bacon, made of
favoured pigs, and growing very brown and comely. Annie knew the names
of all, and ran up through the wood-smoke, every now and then, when a
gentle memory moved her, and asked them how they were getting on, and
when they would like to be eaten. Then she came back with foolish tears,
at thinking of that necessity; and I, being soft in a different way,
would make up my mind against bacon.

But, Lord bless you! it was no good. Whenever it came to breakfast-time,
after three hours upon the moors, I regularly forgot the pigs, but paid
good heed to the rashers. For ours is a hungry county, if such there
be in England; a place, I mean, where men must eat, and are quick to
discharge the duty. The air of the moors is so shrewd and wholesome,
stirring a man's recollection of the good things which have betided him,
and whetting his hope of something still better in the future, that by