A wind that cuts you like a knife.  You could tell Greenhow Hill folk by the red-apple colour o’ their cheeks an’ nose tips, and their blue eyes, driven into pinpoints by the wind.  Miners mostly, burrowin’ for lead i’ th’ hillsides, followin’ the trail of th’ ore vein same as a field-rat.  It was the roughest minin’ I ever seen.  Yo’d come on a bit o’ creakin’ wood windlass like a well-head, an’ you was let down i’ th’ bight of a rope, fendin’ yoursen off the side wi’ one hand, carryin’ a candle stuck in a lump o’ clay with t’other, an’ clickin’ hold of a rope with t’other hand.’

‘An’ that’s three of them,’ said Mulvaney.  ’Must be a good climate in those parts.’

Learoyd took no heed.

‘An’ then yo’ came to a level, where you crept on your hands and knees through a mile o’ windin’ drift, an’ you come out into a cave-place as big as Leeds Townhall, with a engine pumpin’ water from workin’s ’at went deeper still.  It’s a queer country, let alone minin’, for the hill is full of those natural caves, an’ the rivers an’ the becks drops into what they call pot-holes, an’ come out again miles away.’

‘Wot was you doin’ there?’ said Ortheris.

‘I was a young chap then, an’ mostly went wi’ ‘osses, leadin’ coal and lead ore; but at th’ time I’m tellin’ on I was drivin’ the waggon-team i’ th’ big sumph.  I didn’t belong to that country-side by rights.  I went there because of a little difference at home, an’ at fust I took up wi’ a rough lot.  One night we’d been drinkin’, an’ I must ha’ hed more than I could stand, or happen th’ ale was none so good.  Though i’ them days, By for God, I never seed bad ale.’  He flung his arms over his head, and gripped a vast handful of white violets.  ‘Nah,’ said he, ’I never seed the ale I could not drink, the bacca I could not smoke, nor the lass I could not kiss.  Well, we mun have a race home, the lot on us.  I lost all th’ others, an’ when I was climbin’ ower one of them walls built o’ loose stones, I comes down into the ditch, stones and all, an’ broke my arm.  Not as I knawed much about it, for I fell on th’ back of my head, an’ was knocked stupid like.  An’ when I come to mysen it were mornin’, an’ I were lyin’ on the settle i’ Jesse Roantree’s houseplace, an’ ’Liza Roantree was settin’ sewin’, I ached all ovver, and my mouth were like a lime-kiln.  She gave me a drink out of a china mug wi’ gold letters—­“A Present from Leeds”—­as I looked at many and many a time at after.  “Yo’re to lie still while Dr. Warbottom comes, because your arm’s broken, and father has sent a lad to fetch him.  He found yo’ when he was goin’ to work, an’ carried you here on his back,” sez she.  “Oa!” sez I; an’ I shet my eyes, for I felt ashamed o’ mysen.  “Father’s gone to his work these three hours, an’ he said he’d tell ’em to get somebody to drive the tram.”  The clock ticked, an’ a bee comed in the house, an’ they rung i’ my head like mill-wheels.  An’ she give me another drink an’ settled the pillow.  “Eh, but yo’re young to be getten drunk an’ such like, but yo’ won’t do it again, will yo’?”—­“Noa,” sez I, “I wouldn’t if she’d not but stop they mill-wheels clatterin’."’