242 NORTH LANCASHIRE 



house, with various allowances of milk, coal, etc. ; but 

 our host, who had worked his way up, opined that the 

 young men living in were better off than they ever 

 became afterwards, even as masters. For the hay 

 harvest Irishmen are engaged ; the same men came to 

 this farm every year and got 6 for the month's work, 

 whether it lasted the full four weeks or was over in a 

 little more than a fortnight, as it had been that year. 



The rest of the district, the tangle of little valleys 

 down which flow the headwaters of the Hodder, was 

 of much the same character. South of the Hodder 

 the underlying rock is limestone, which breaks out in 

 scars here and there, and was answerable for the big 

 pale blue bell flowers in the hedgerow and the more 

 deeply-hued geraniums on the wayside wastes ; but 

 northward the higher fells were all gritstone, with a 

 more gloomy and restricted vegetation. Everywhere 

 grassland and everywhere fine cattle, and as we turned 

 away with some reluctance from the valley, hospitable 

 always but fairer than its wont in the sunshine of that 

 brilliant summer, we promised ourselves to come again 

 whenever we wanted some good milch cows, though 

 we felt we should need a shrewd dealer on our side to 

 stand up to the local bargainers. 



The easy routes to the north were either to turn 

 down the valley into the Lancashire plain until the 

 great high road running from Preston to Lancaster was 

 struck, or to follow up the valley to Hellifield and 

 there get on the northern through route by way of 

 Kirby Lonsdale and Shap into the valley of the Eden. 

 However, there is a rough but feasible road straight 

 over the moor into Lancaster, and this we took and 

 were well repaid. To begin with, it traverses the 

 Trough of Bowland, a steep-sided valley that seems 

 completely barred as though it led into a deep circular 



