visible; deep in the heather near lay the broken jambs of the
window; a stone doorway with its lintel was still standing; and on
the slope beneath it, hardly to be distinguished now from the great
primaeval blocks out of which they had sprung and to which they
were fast returning, reposed two or three huge millstones. Perhaps
they bordered some ancient track, climbed by the millers of the
past when they came to this remote spot to give their orders; but,
if so, the track had long since sunk out of sight in the heather,
and no visible link remained to connect the history of this high
and lonely place with that of those teeming valleys hidden to west
and north among the moors, the dwellers wherein must once have
known it well. From the old threshold the eye commanded a
wilderness of moors, rising wave-like one after another, from the
green swell just below whereon stood Reuben Grieve's farm, to the
far-distant Alderley Edge. In the hollows between, dim tall
chimneys veiled in mist and smoke showed the places of the cotton
towns--of Hayfield, New Mills, Staleybridge, Stockport; while in
the far northwest, any gazer to whom the country-side spoke
familiarly might, in any ordinary clearness of weather, look for
and find the eternal smoke-cloud of Manchester.

So the deserted smithy stood as it were spectator for ever of that
younger, busier England which wanted it no more. Human life
notwithstanding had left on it some very recent traces. On the
lintel of the ruined door two names were scratched deep into the
whitish under-grain of the black weather-beaten grit. The upper one
ran: 'David Suveret Grieve, Sept. 15, 1863;' the lower, 'Louise
Stephanie Grieve, Sept. 15, 1863.' They were written in bold
round-hand, and could be read at a considerable distance. During
the nine months they had been there, many a rustic passer-by had