all she said was, 'It made no odds, they
were all the same as the rest of us.' And now that she had been on
the farm nigh upon forty years, and had nursed my father, and made his
clothes, and all that he had to eat, and then put him in his coffin, she
was come to such authority, that it was not worth the wages of the best
man on the place to say a word in answer to Betty, even if he would face
the risk to have ten for one, or twenty.

Annie was her love and joy. For Annie she would do anything, even so far
as to try to smile, when the little maid laughed and danced to her. And
in truth I know not how it was, but every one was taken with Annie at
the very first time of seeing her. She had such pretty ways and manners,
and such a look of kindness, and a sweet soft light in her long blue
eyes full of trustful gladness. Everybody who looked at her seemed to
grow the better for it, because she knew no evil. And then the turn she
had for cooking, you never would have expected it; and how it was her
richest mirth to see that she had pleased you. I have been out on the
world a vast deal as you will own hereafter, and yet have I never seen
Annie's equal for making a weary man comfortable.

CHAPTER VII

HARD IT IS TO CLIMB

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 wholeso