CHAPTER XII.

THE NORTH-EASTERN HIGHLANDS.

My heart leaps up when I behold The rainbow in the sky-- So was it when I was a boy; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!

WORDSWORTH.

For our present purpose it is convenient to include, under the general title of the North-eastern Highlands, the vast mountain district, occupying portions of three counties, which extends from the Peak to the neighbourhood of Greenfield. Reached in part by the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire system, in part by the L. & N. W. Huddersfield line, it is tolerably well-known to travellers by those railways. They are cognizant of it as a region of lofty moorland, bleak and uninviting except at grouse-time. To people in general, however, it is as strange as Norway; and no wonder, since a visit to any one of the better portions implies a love of adventure which, if not exceptional, is infrequent. Glorious, nevertheless, are those untouched and silent wastes. Thousands of their acres have never felt the ploughshare, nay, not even the spade, and probably never will. In parts they seem to belong less to the existing order of nature than to obsolete ages, suggesting, like the Sahara, the idea of a former and exhausted world. Seal Bark might be the relics of some ancient mountain, torn to fragments when the wind whistled among the Calamites and the Sigillarias, now nothing but bones, nameless and immemorial.

The southernmost portion of this huge tract of wilderness is occupied by Kinder Scout, the highest factor of the Peak, the elevation being nearly two thousand feet above the sea; and which, presenting a "broad bare back" or plateau of fully four miles in length from east to west, with a width of more than half as much, is distinguishable at a glance, though often cloud-capped, from all its neighbours. Unfortunately for the rightful claims of massive Kinder, this great length detracts from its majesty, since the majestic, to be appreciated, always demands a certain amount of concentration. In substance, like most other parts of our "north-eastern highlands," Kinder Scout is millstone-grit, thickly overlaid with mountain-peat, the foothold of wiry scrub, though, here and there presenting bold escarpments. The surface is deeply fissured by rills of drainage-water, and hillocks and depressions are universal. Paths cross it in various directions, but these of course are only for the brave.

The best route, when it is desired to ascend this noble eminence, is _viâ_ Hayfield, beginning at Bowden Bridge, and going up the valley past Farlands. It is indispensable, however, either to be provided with a map, or to be accompanied by a guide, as well as to take precautions in regard to possible trespass.[19] Once upon the summit, the reward is ample, alike in the magnificent scenery, rich with distant purple shadows, and in the inspiring atmosphere. If in the landscape there is nothing gay and festal, no slight thing is it to stand in the presence-chamber of these antique solitudes, reading the silent history of centuries of winter ravage, so terrible that no wonder the very rocks have thrust up their grey heads to ask the meaning of it. No slight thing is it either at any time to find ourselves beside the very urn of a bounding and musical stream, such as trots along the valley, this one having its birth in "Kinder Downfall"--a far-seen shoot of water from the western cliff, a single silver line of pretty cataract that might have heard of Terni and the Bridal Veil, and so much the more precious because the only one of its kind within the distance, which is from Manchester, say precisely twenty miles. Rain of course is needed, as at Lodore, for the full development.

The writer of the "Guide" says that another very beautiful and not infrequent spectacle to be witnessed here is when in wet weather, or after a storm, the wind blows strongly from the W.S.W. "Coming from the direction of Hayfield, it sweeps over the Upper Moor and the bare backs of the bleak Blackshaws, and beating against the high flanking walls of rock is concentrated with prodigious power into the angle of the mountain, forcing back the whole volume of the cascade, and carrying it up in most fantastic and beautiful lambent forms, which are driven back again as heavy rain and mist for half a mile across the bog, then perhaps to return to be shivered into spray once more, unless in some momentary lull the torrent rushes down in huge volume." "Sometimes," he adds, "in winter, the fall, with the huge walls of rock flanking its sides, becomes one mass of icy stalactites, which as the sun declines present a magnificent spectacle." According to Mr. H. B. Biden, in _Notes and Queries_, Feb. 16th, 1878, though other writers think differently, and, as it seems to us, less reasonably, it is to the downfall that Kinder Scout owes its name. Kin-(cin)-dwr-scwd, he tells us, in Cymraeg signifies "High water cataract."

Keeping to the main line, the original "Sheffield and Manchester," half an hour carries us to Broadbottom and Mottram-in-Longdendale, where we stop in order to make acquaintance with the lively Etherowe, which here divides Cheshire from Derbyshire, running on to Compstall, where, as above stated, it enters the Goyt. The scenery all the way to the point of confluence is alluring. On the Cheshire side of the stream the slope is occupied in part by Bottoms-hall Wood, through which there is a footway to Werneth Low, and then to Hyde or Woodley, a very pleasant sufficiency for an afternoon. On the Derbyshire side, after crossing a few fields, Stirrup Wood forms a beautiful counterpoise to Bottoms-hall; and when through this we are upon Stirrup-benches, famous for profusion of the Oreads' fern--that fragrant one so fittingly dedicated to the nymphs who once upon a time danced on green slopes around Diana,

Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades.

Botanists call it the _Lastrea Oreopteris_. It is well to be reminded by them that scientific nomenclature is something more than Greek and Latin, and a burden for the memory, and that all the best and oldest portion of it lies bosomed in poësy. The mythical Oreads themselves are not required, for we have better ones in our live companions; but of the memory of them it would be an irreparable loss to be despoiled.

Above Stirrup-benches comes Ludworth Moor. Then far away, again up above, the grand mountain-terrace called Charlesworth Coombs, the semi-circular and denuded face of which is in some parts very nearly perpendicular, the ridge affording, yet once again, supreme views. On every side there is a tumultuous sea of mountain-crests, with intermixture of sweet green knolls, often wooded, in the relish of which, as upon Kinder, one thinks of the immortals in art and literature,

Who never can be wholly known, But still their beauty grows.

On the contrary side are the Glossop moors; within the valley, the thriving town after which they are named; and the remarkably beautiful cone, covered with trees, called Shire Hill, an isolated mound that looks as if it might have been tossed there in pastime by the Titans. Glossop, as every one knows, has a station of its own, which should be remembered not only for the sake of Shire Hill, but for Lees-hall Dingle, Ramsley Clough, Chunal Clough, Melandra Castle, and Whiteley Nab, the climb to the brows of which last is no doubt somewhat arduous, but well repaid. On summer Sunday mornings, very early, when the smoke has had time to dissolve, the Glossop people say they can distinguish even Chester and the sea. Ramsley Clough, a romantic defile, apparently under the special protection of the deities of the fountains, and the stream down which would be more fitly designated a thousand little waterfalls, is remarkably prolific in mosses and other green cryptogamous plants. "Melandra Castle"--an old rampart, with a vast quantity of stones dug out or still embedded, is supposed, on the showing of some fragments of Roman tiles, to date from not later than A.D. 500.

Mottram-in-Longdendale, like Charlesworth, abounds in bold and romantic scenery, though the elevation is much less, the height of Mottram church above the sea being only about four hundred and fifty feet. Tintwistle and the neighbourhood also furnish endless recreation, as, indeed, does the whole country as far as Woodhead. The railway runs up the valley of the Etherowe, which river rises in the moors above, and has at this part been converted, by barricading, into five successive _quasi_-lakes,--not so picturesque, perhaps, as some of the other great reservoirs we have made acquaintance with, but still furnishing an agreeable spectacle, alike from the train and from the hills. They contribute the chief portion of the Manchester waterworks storage; the collecting-grounds, which are estimated to have an extent of nearly nineteen thousand acres, consisting chiefly of moorland, covered, as at Kinder, with immense sponges of mountain-peat. Retaining the rain, these serve a purpose corresponding to that of the snows and glaciers upon the Alps, so various are the ways in which the munificence of nature is expressed. Mounting on to the moors at the entrance to the Woodhead tunnel (by the brookside) we presently find a clough, a waterfall, and the beginnings of the river Derwent. Crossing the river, as the alternative, there is a fine walk to Tintwistle, and thence, over other seemingly boundless moors, to Staley Brushes.

But now we get to a district better sought by travel on the L. & N. W. line, the long and picturesque portion of it, that is, which runs through the Saddleworth valley _en route_ for Leeds. With the mind absorbed in thought of the place one is bound to, or of the duties or occupations there awaiting our arrival, the scenery right and left of a railway often receives a very indifferent amount of attention. The line from Ashton to Huddersfield, excepting only the great tunnel, is one of those, however, which should never be used heedlessly. The prospects are never wide-extended, for the track is entirely through deep valleys: it is the slopes ascending from these which are in many parts picturesque; if we think ever so slightly of what they lead up to, they possess the still better quality of significance.

In the bygones the "Brushes," briefly so designated, were almost as noted with the old Lancashire naturalists as Cotterill. The ravine so called, grey crags guarding the entrance, and a stream, with innumerable little mossy waterfalls descending from some undiscovered fount above, was renowned not more for its wild grandeur than for its botany and ornithology. Now it is only historical, the adaptation of the best part to the purposes of a waterworks company having effaced all the leading characteristics. The wheel-path remains much as it was, at least above the dam, and by pursuing this, a somewhat long ascent, we find ourselves once again upon the moors, here called "North Britain." Two courses present themselves now. One is to bend to the right, returning by way of Hollingworth; the other to strike off sharply to the left, and after a while, descend to the railway. The first-named supplies views of extraordinary breadth and changefulness, extending up and across the Tintwistle valley, and covering the hills above Dinting and Glossop; the Hollingworth reservoirs (supplementary to those of Woodhead, and well set-off with trees,) contributing in the best manner to the power of the landscape as a whole. The Holyngworthe family (for such is the ancient and proper spelling of the name) up to the time of the death of the last representative, had been seated here from times anterior to the Conquest, thus reminding one of the Traffords of Trafford Park. The hall, a quaint relic of the past, now tenanted by Mr. Broderick, is to a considerable extent, of temp. Henry VI. By taking the leftward path, over the heather, opportunity is acquired for mounting the lofty crest, said to have been once occupied by "Bucton Castle;" a fortress, to say the least of it, semi-fabulous, though there is no reason to doubt that in the Armada times, Bucton, like Alderley Edge, was used as a signalling station. In case of need, flames shooting up from the topmost peak, would be visible, on clear nights, at a distance of at least twenty miles.

Reference was made, a page or two back, to Seal Bark. For this we quit the line at Greenfield, first ascending past "Bin Green" to the "Moorcock," vulgarly "Bill's-o'-Jack's," from the heights around which the outlook over the adjacent country is once again marvellous. Very curious, too, and in itself well worth the climb, is the far-seen rock "Pots and Pans," well, if not elegantly, so named, for on drawing near it is discovered to be an immense mass of millstone-grit, left there since the glacial period, with about a dozen roundish cavities upon the top, the largest of them more than a yard across by about fifteen inches in depth, and nine of the group usually holding water. Local superstition, as would be expected, attributes these singular basins to the Druids, who are supposed to have excavated them for ritual purposes; but, as in other places--for such cavities are by no means confined to Greenfield--there can be no hesitation in regarding them as pure works of nature. Millstone-grit is, in parts, peculiarly inadhesive. Exposed as this rock has been for untold ages to the beating of tempests, its softer portions, where the cavities are, have been slowly fretted away, and we are asked to recall nothing more than the ancient proverb. Keeping to the road, by degrees the elevation becomes so great that the topmost part is playfully termed the "Isle of Skye." It is hereabouts that the cloudberry, that most artistic of northern fruits, never seen and unable to exist upon lower levels, is for our own neighbourhood, so plentiful. When ripe, so thick is the spread of rosy amber that the spectacle is most bright and pretty, the ground seeming strewed with white-heart cherries. Singular to say, although very nice to human palates, the grouse leave it untouched, turning to the whortleberry and the cranberry.

As the "Druidical" origin has been popular, and lest there may still be a lingering doubt with some as to the natural origin of the "Pots and Pans," it may be added that upon the high grounds within a few miles of Todmorden there have been reckoned up nearly eight hundred similar cavities, the diameter varying from a few inches to four or five feet. They may be observed indeed in every stage of formation, thus altogether neutralizing the idea of their having been produced by artificial means. They occur, moreover, only in this particular series of the millstone-grit, other descriptions of grit in the neighbourhood--those not so amenable to the action of the weather--being entirely without. Very often, too, the basins are in positions such as neither Druids or any one else would ever select for ritual or ceremonials. The number of basins is itself an argument against the Druidical origin, since so many would never possibly be required, to say nothing of the fairly determined fact that the Druidical altar was usually a _cromlech_, formed by placing a great slab of stone horizontally upon the edges of two other slabs fixed in the ground vertically.

But we are bound for Seal Bark. To get hither, the road must be quitted near the "Moorcock," and a way found through the fir-wood to the bottom of the valley, then re-ascending by the borders of the stream. A water so wild and beautiful it would be difficult to find nearer than Scotland or Carnarvonshire. Sliding, gliding, tumbling, in every conceivable mode, now it hurries along a smooth and limpid current; now it plays with the boulders, and changes to little cascades; now it fills little bays and recesses with reposing foam as white as snow, or that are alive with circular processions of untiring bubbles that swim awhile delicately, round and round, then, like the dancers in Sir Roger de Coverley, when they bend beneath the arch of lifted arms, rejoin their first partners and away down the middle, away and away, as swift as thought. Great defiles open on the right and left, Rimmon Clough and Birchen Clough, at the foot of which stands the one solitary tree of this grand wilderness--a mountain-ash, the tree of all others accustomed to loneliness. Above, at a vast height, is Ravenstone Brow, so named from the number of birds that once nested thereabouts, and where cuckoos still come. When at length we arrive at Seal Bark, who shall mistake it? All the waste and broken rock of a kingdom seems to have been pitched over the brow, and let fall and roll or stop just where it liked. The probability is that at some remote period the torrent undermined one side of the gorge, the ruins toppling over much in the same way as those of the ancient Clevedon shore, where it is plain that the fragments owe their present position to the remorseless beating of the sea.

For those who care to run on through the great Standedge tunnel, three miles and sixty-four yards long, thus getting to Marsden, there is an extremely fine mountain-pass called Wessenden Clough, the heights on either hand not less than a thousand feet, and once again a rushing torrent. There is a path back to Greenfield over the moors, but the way is rather long, except for the practised. The great tunnel at Woodhead, upon the Sheffield line, often thought to exceed the Standedge, is, we may here remark, twenty yards shorter.

Footnote

[19: All needful particulars will be found in the little "Guide to Hayfield and Kinder Scout," purchasable at Hayfield and at Bowden Bridge.]