A fortnight had passed over and winter was advancing with rapid
strides. In bleak northern farmsteads there was much to be done
before November weather should make the roads too heavy for half-fed
horses to pull carts through. There was the turf, pared up on the
distant moors, and left out to dry, to be carried home and stacked;
the brown fern was to be stored up for winter bedding for the
cattle; for straw was scarce and dear in those parts; even for
thatching, heather (or rather ling) was used. Then there was meat to
salt while it could be had; for, in default of turnips and
mangold-wurzel, there was a great slaughtering of barren cows as
soon as the summer herbage failed; and good housewives stored up
their Christmas piece of beef in pickle before Martinmas was over.
Corn was to be ground while yet it could be carried to the distant
mill; the great racks for oat-cake, that swung at the top of the
kitchen, had to be filled. And last of all came the pig-killing,
when the second frost set in. For up in the north there is an idea
that the ice stored in the first frost will melt, and the meat cured
then taint; the first frost is good for nothing but to be thrown
away, as they express it.

There came a breathing-time after this last event. The house had had
its last autumn cleaning, and was neat and bright from top to bottom,
from one end to another. The turf was led; the coal carted up from
Monkshaven; the wood stored; the corn ground; the pig killed, and
the hams and head and hands lying in salt. The butcher had been glad