After we had waited there a short time, the mistress again made her appearance, with a shovel full of red-hot peat, so, although she had not given us a decided answer as to whether we could stay the night or not, we considered that silence gave consent, especially when seconded by the arrival of the welcome fire.
"You surely must have missed your train!" she said; but when we told her that we were pedestrian tourists, or, as my brother described it, "on a walking expedition," she looked surprised.
When she entered the room again we were sorting out our letters and papers, and she said, "You surely must be sappers!" We had some difficulty in making her understand the object of our journey, as she could not see how we could be walking for pleasure in such bad weather.
We found the peat made a very hot fire and did good service in helping to dry our wet clothing. We wanted some hot milk and bread for supper, which she was very reluctant to supply, as milk was extremely scarce on the moors, but as a special favour she robbed the remainder of the family to comply with our wishes. The wind howled outside, but we heeded it not, for we were comfortably housed before a blazing peat fire which gave out a considerable amount of heat. We lit one of our ozokerite candles, of which we carried a supply to be prepared for emergencies, and read our home newspaper, The Warrington Guardian, which was sent to us weekly, until supper-time arrived, and then we were surprised by our hostess bringing in an enormous bowl, apparently an ancient punch bowl, large enough to wash ourselves in, filled with hot milk and bread, along with two large wooden spoons. Armed with these, we both sat down with the punch-bowl between us, hungry enough and greedy enough to compete with one another as to which should devour the most. Which won would be difficult to say, but nothing remained except the bowl and the spoons and our extended selves.
We had walked twenty-seven miles, and it must have been weather such as we had experienced that inspired the poet to exclaim:
The west wind blows and brings rough weather,
The east brings cold and wet together,
The south wind blows and brings much rain,
The north wind blows it back again!
The beds were placed end to end, so that our feet came together, with a wooden fixture between the two beds to act as the dividing line. Needless to say we slept soundly, giving orders to be wakened early in the morning.