'Brass! Brass indeed! It's folk without fire and with friends that I think on. Now, Dick, make off. I'll promise four days in t' fore-end. How art thee going, on Nobbin?' 'I lay I'll keep drier on my own shanks, and there 'll be nought for Nobbin to do, though that deuced hind leg o' hers 'll be getting stiff enough for t' farrier if she stands much longer.' 'I'll look after Nobbin.' 'Just a walk along t' track 'll do nought.' 'I think I ken t' needs o' that limb by now.' 'Well, I'll gang and see what's doing.' Chapman sauntered off, turning up his collar and jamming his hat down on his brows. The pits lay between the Mires and Old Lafer on the moor above the Hall, and here the three able-bodied men of the Mires worked in all seasons except hay-time. At hay-time they hired out to the low-country farmers as monthly labourers. A small stock of coal sufficed in summer to eke out the dwindling turfs in the peat shanties, and keep the fire smouldering while the household laboured in the meadows. But there were days all the year round when the wild west wind, sweeping off Great Whernside, brought tempests of rain, and made it 'that rough on the tops' that no man could stand against it and even the sheep went uncounted. Then the doors at the Mires were fast shut, except when a woman in clogs pattered round for a skep of peats, or a man slouched down to the marsh to count the foaming streams pouring into it. This when it 'abated like.' Then would come another rush of wind and wet, blotting out the whole world to within a yard or two of the cottage windows. If there were one kind of weather that Scilla detested more than another it was fog. A snow-storm or deluge of rain kept Hartas at home, but betwixt the liftings of fog he would make his way to the Inn at East Lafer, and when he came back at night there was a wath over the beck to cross, the moor-track to strike, and the pit-shaft to miss. It was nothing when he finished off by rolling down the slape sides of the hollow.