Perhaps they bordered some ancient track, climbed by the millers of the past when they came to this remote spot to give their orders; but, if so, the track had long since sunk out of sight in the heather, and no visible link remained to connect the history of this high and lonely place with that of those teeming valleys hidden to west and north among the moors, the dwellers wherein must once have known it well.

From the old threshold the eye commanded a wilderness of moors, rising wave-like one after another, from the green swell just below whereon stood Reuben Grieve's farm, to the far-distant Alderley Edge.

In the hollows between, dim tall chimneys veiled in mist and smoke showed the places of the cotton towns--of Hayfield, New Mills, Staleybridge, Stockport; while in the far northwest, any gazer to whom the country-side spoke familiarly might, in any ordinary clearness of weather, look for and find the eternal smoke-cloud of Manchester.
So the deserted smithy stood as it were spectator for ever of that younger, busier England which wanted it no more.

Human life notwithstanding had left on it some very recent traces.

On the lintel of the ruined door two names were scratched deep into the whitish under-grain of the black weather-beaten grit.