Look at the moor!

CHAPTER ill ACROSS THE MOOR

Missel Moor before we get to the Manor.

They tumble about on th' moor an' play there all day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em.

Yes. That's th' moor, with a good natured grin.

I've lived on th' moor with 'em so long.

What is a moor? she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.

Eh! I wouldn't live away from th' moor for anythin'.

I told thee tha'd like th' moor after a bit.

A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin', Martha explained.

Because they stuck it to me on the moor today.

Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough, said Mrs. Medlock.

A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with their doors locked a house on the edge of a moor whatsoever a moor was sounded dreary.

Our Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself an' plays for hours.

Tha' said it almost like Dickon talks to his wild things on th' moor.

It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha' victuals, answered

You could bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it tonight.

Sometimes it sounds like as if some one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'.

I had 'em all pipin' hot when they came in from playin' on th' moor.

To think of going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was blue!

He's got sheep on th' moor that knows him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand.

The far reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple black or awful dreary gray.

When I'm goin' home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when I'm crossin' the moor.

There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.

Eh! it was pretty on th' moor with th' birds gettin' up an' th' rabbits scamperin' about an' th' sun risin'.

If I couldn't keep secrets from th' other lads, secrets about foxes' cubs, an' birds' nests, an' wild things' holes, there'd be naught safe on th' moor.

The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to waken her up a little.

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and cloud.

Tha's courtin' some bold young madam somewhere tellin' thy lies to her about bein' th' finest cock robin on Missel Moor an' ready to fight all th' rest of 'em.

The house is six hundred years old and it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a hundred rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked.

The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face and looking up into it, trying to imagine what it would be

She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do the week's baking and enjoy herself thoroughly.

The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky over this particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant and soft than it was over the moor.

A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' he began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young grass for it.

Mary felt as if the drive would never come to an end and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.

It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty red head.

She was not at all a timid child and she was not exactly frightened, but she felt that there was no knowing what might happen in a house with a hundred rooms nearly all shut up a house standing on the edge of a moor.

She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave her a pleased feeling even a disagreeable little girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself.

She did not know that this was the best thing she could have done, and she did not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor.

Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha kneeling upon the hearth building her fire every morning she ate her breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it and after each breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge moor which seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky, and after she had stared for a while she realized that if she did not go out she would have to stay in and do nothing and so she went out.