“Oh, what a nice place! Oh, how I should like to stay here to-night, instead of going further!” exclaimed Wynnette, appreciatively.
The girl made no reply, but began to lay out towels on the washstand, and to pour water from the ewer into the basin.
“This is a very lonesome country, though, isn’t it?” inquired Wynnette, who was bound to talk.
“There’s not a many gentry, ma’am. There be mill hands and pitmen mostly about here,” said the girl.
“Mill hands and pitmen! I saw no mills nor mines, either, as we drove along.”
“No, ma’am; but they beant far off. The hills do hide them just about here; but you might seen the high chimneys—I mean the tops of ’em and the smoke.”
“Are they pitmen down there in the barroom?”
“In the taproom? Yes, ma’am. Mill hands, and farm hands, too. They do come in at this hour for their beer and ’bacco.”
“Do you have many more customers besides these men?”
“Not ivery day, ma’am; but we hev the farmers on their way to Middlemoor market stop here; and—and the gentry coming and going betwixt the station and Fell Hall, or Middlemoor Court, or Anglewood Manor, ma’am.”