In the Peak Country. 127 



tune as she crosses the road intersecting the moors. Verily, 

 money-making men of Hallamshire, you may thank your 

 lucky stars that your pursuits have fallen to you in such 

 pleasant places. There are no other citizens in this proud 

 empire who can in so short a space of time escape from 

 depressing confinement into beautiful freedom ; who can 

 close their office doors at four o'clock, and by six be han- 

 dling a newly-shot grouse instead of a banker's pass-book. 

 Hard-working and grimy toilers, into whose philosophy 

 neither pass-book nor grouse enters sc» much as in the dream 

 of an idle hour, you, too, may be thankful that so near your 

 grinding implements you have the flowery dells and ravines 

 that give so much charm to the five streams which " one of 

 your own poets," Ebenezer Elliott, knew so well, loved so 

 much, and celebrated in such sweet song. 



On the high-road between Manchester and Sheffield, in a 

 hollow under the finest hills, there is a solid stone bridge. 

 A grand coaching business used to be done between the 

 metropolis of cotton and the metropolis of steel, and the 

 Lancashire lads and Yorkshire tykes always found in the 

 wild grandeur of the surrounding scenery some sort of com- 

 pensation for the journey. Are any of those old coach 

 travellers living now, I wonder? Not many, perhaps, for 

 this was one of the earliest stud-farms for the iron horse. 

 But there must be some who remember the half-way resting- 

 place in the hamlet of Ashopton, nestling close under the 

 bold peaks of Win Hill arid Lose Hill; the loneliness 

 of the situation, the grandeur of the prospects far and near ; 

 the river rippling under the bridge over which the coaches 

 used to pass, and below which the Derwent receives the 

 smaller stream that for some distance had appeared running 

 parallel with the coach road ; and the substantial larder of 

 the hostelry. 



