In the pretty model village of Styal, on the banks of the Bollin, is a house which is still called by the name of 'Prentice House. Here once lived a number of young girls and boys, orphans many of them, who worked in the picturesque ivy-clad building, strangely unlike a mill, at Quarry Bank. They were 'apprenticed', that is, bound to their master for seven years. During that time they were well fed and clothed by their employer, and certain times were set apart for learning to read and write and sew. On Sunday mornings they walked together to the church at Wilmslow. The girls were dressed in straw bonnets and plain grey dresses, the boys in fustian coats and breeches of corduroy. They were kindly treated, but the hours in the mill were long. They rose at five, and their breakfast of porridge and milk was eaten in the mill. Half an hour was allowed for dinner, and not until half-past eight did their long day of toil come to an end. At Christmas prizes were given to those who had been most obedient and industrious during the year. The young people of Quarry Bank were on the whole happy in the service of Samuel Greg their master, but the lot of the apprentices in other mills was often very different. The harshness and cruelty of some employers led to the passing of Acts of Parliament which shortened the hours of labour and fixed severe penalties for ill-treatment. A later Act forbade altogether the employment of children under a certain age. [Illustration: STYAL MILL] In the middle of the eighteenth century the silk industry took root in Cheshire. We first hear of it in Stockport, where a mill was started for the winding and throwing[3] of silk. John Clayton, of Stockport, built a mill at Congleton, and the industry spread rapidly to the neighbouring villages of Sutton, Rainow, and Bollington. [3] i.e. twisting the fine threads into yarn. Those who were engaged in this particular process were called 'throwsters', just as spinster meant originally one engaged in spinning. The first silk-mill in Macclesfield, which is now the chief seat of the silk industry in Cheshire, was opened by Charles Roe in 1756. Roe Street is named after him. He made a fortune and built Christ Church. Over the altar you may see his bust in marble, and over it a figure of Genius with a cogwheel in her hand. In the museum at West Park are some models of silk-looms. There was a silk-mill at Knutsford, as the name Silk Mill Street tells us. In Mobberley also nearly every cottage had its spinning-wheel. The cottagers fetched the raw silk from Macclesfield and took back the spun yarn to be woven into pieces at the Macclesfield looms. CHAPTER XXXII THE RAILWAYS OF CHESHIRE After the making of canals came the railways, and the mighty power of steam, that had wrought such a vast change in the cotton industry, was to be the moving force of the new invention.