noon
There is a dreary monotony about the place ; and if some giant could come and pick up all the rows of houses , and change their places one with another , it is a question whether the men , now away at work , would notice any difference whatever until they entered the houses standing in the place of those which they had left in the morning . There is a church , and a vicarage half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden ; there are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels , and the doctor 's house , with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door . There are no other buildings above the common average of mining villages ; and it needs not the high chimneys , and engine-houses with winding gear , dotting the surrounding country , to notify the fact that Stokebridge is a mining village . It is a little past noon , and many of the women come to their doors and look curiously after a miner , who , in his working clothes , and black with coal-dust , walks rapidly towards his house , with his head bent down , and his thick felt hat slouched over his eyes . `` It 's Bill Haden ; he works at the ` Vaughan . ' '' `` What brings he up at this hour ? '' `` Summat wrong , I 'll be bound . ''