CHAPTER VII.

The evening comes, and brings the dew along, The rodie welkin sheeneth to the eyne, Around the alestake minstrels sing the song, Young ivy round the door-post doth entwine; I lay me down upon the grass, yet to my will, Albeit all is fair, there lacketh something still. --CHATTERTON.

The people of southern England are apt to sneer at the enthusiasm with which Lancashire men speak of Tim Bobbin; and, if this imperfect sketch should fall into the hands of any such readers, it is not improbable that they may look upon the whole thing as a great fuss about next to nothing. One reason for this is, that, for the most part, they know next to nothing of the man--which is not much to be wondered at. But the greatest difficulty in their case is the remote character of the words and idioms used by Tim. To the majority of such readers, the dialogue of "Tummus and Mary" is little more than an unintelligible curiosity; and I believe, speaking generally, that it would be better understood by the natives of the metropolis if it had been written in French. The language in which the commanding genius of Chaucer wrought, five hundred years ago, and which was the common language of the London of those days, is, even in its most idiomatic part, very much the same as that used in all the country parts of Lancashire at this hour. But great changes have come round since the time of Chaucer; and though an Englishman is an Englishman in general characteristics, all the world over, there is as much difference now in the tone of manners and language in the North and South as there is between the tones of an organ and those of a piano. I have hardly ever met with a southern man able to comprehend the quaint, graphic wealth which hutches and chuckles with living fun and country humour, under the equally quaint garb of old language in which Tim clothes his story of "Tummus and Mary." But, on its first appearance, the people of his own district at once recognised an exquisite picture of themselves; and they hailed it with delight. He superintended several editions of his works during his lifetime--a time when the population of Lancashire was very scanty, and scattered over large, bleak spaces; and when publishing was a very different thing to what it is now. Since then, his principal story has continually grown in the estimation of scholars and students, as a valuable addition to the rich treasures of English philology, even apart from the genius which combined its humorous details with such masterly art, and finished and rounded it into the completeness of a literary dewdrop. That tale was calculated to command attention and awaken delight at once--and it will long be cherished with pride, by Lancashire men at least, as an exceedingly natural "glimpse of auld lang syne." But those who wish to understand the force of Tim's character, must look to his letters, and other prose fragments, such as "Truth in a Mask." These chiefly reveal the sterling excellence of the man. He was a clear-sighted, daring, independent politician--one of the strong old pioneers of human freedom in these parts. He had a curious audience in that secluded corner of Lancashire where he lived--in those days--a people who had worn their political shackles so long that they almost looked upon them as ornaments.

But _Tim_ kent what was fu brawly;

and he was continually blurting out some startling truth or another, in vigorous, unmistakable English; and he gloried in the then disreputable and dangerous epithet of "Reforming John." This, too, in the teeth of patrons and friends whose political tendencies were in an entirely opposite direction. Let any man turn to the letter he writes to his friend, the Rev. Mr. Heap, of Dorking, who had desired him to "spare the levitical order," and then say whether there was any shadow of sycophancy in the soul of John Collier. Under the correction of magnifying the matter through the medium of one's native likings then, I will venture to declare a feeling akin to veneration for the spot where he was born; and I know that it is shared by the men of his native county, generally, even by those who find themselves at a difficult distance from his quaint tone of thought and language--for it takes a man thoroughly soaked with the Lancashire soil to appreciate him thoroughly. But, apart from all local inclinings, men of thought and feeling will ever welcome any spark of genuine creative fire, which glows with such genial human sympathies, and such an honourable sense of justice as John Collier evinces, however humble it may be in comparison with the achievements of those mighty spirits who have made the literature of our sea-girt island glorious in the earth. The waters of the little mountain stream, singing its lone, low song, as it struggles through its rocky channel, are dear and beautiful, and useful to that rugged solitude, as is the great ocean to the shores on which its surges play. Nay, what is that ocean, but the gathered chorus of these lonely waters, in which the individual voice is lost in one grand combination of varied tones. With this imperfect notice, I will, at present, leave our old local favourite; and just take another glance at Flixton, before I bid adieu to his birthplace.

The reader may remember that, on the day of my first visit to John Collier's birthplace, I lounged some time about the hamlet of Urmston, conversing with the inhabitants. Leaving that spot, I rambled leisurely along the high road to Flixton, hob-nobbing, and inquiring among different sorts of people, about him, whenever opportunity offered. When I drew near to Shaw Hall, I had traversed a considerable part of the length of the parish, which is only four miles, at most, by about two in breadth. There is nothing like a hill to be seen; but as one wanders on, the country rises and falls, in gentle undulations. Now and then, a pool of water gleamed afar off in the green fields, or, close by the road, rippled into wavelets by the keen wind, which came down steadily from the north that day, whistling shrill cadences among the starved thorns. I cannot give a better idea of the character of the soil than by borrowing the words of Baines, who says: "Much of the land in the parish of Flixton is arable, probably to the amount of nine-tenths of the whole. The farms are comparatively large, and the soil is in general a rich black, sandy, vegetable loam, producing corn, fruit, and potatoes in abundance." I believe the land is now in better cultivation than when these words were written. Shaw Hall is an important place in the history of Flixton. The lords of the land dwelt there in old times. At the time of my visit it was occupied, as a boarding-school, by Mr. James M'Dougall, who was kind enough to show me through the interior when I called there in my ramble. Baines says of Shaw Hall: "It is a venerable mansion, of the age of James I., with gables and wooden parapets on the S. W. and N. sides. The roof has a profusion of chimneys, and a cupola in the centre. In one of the apartments is a painting covering the principal part of the ceiling, which represents the family of Darius kneeling in supplication before Alexander the Great. This picture, though two hundred years old, is in fine preservation, and the faces and figures indicate the hand of a master. There are some smaller paintings and tapestry in the rooms, on one of which is represented a Persian chief at parley with Alexander, and, afterwards, submitting to the conqueror. Stained glass in the windows exhibit the arms of Asshawe and Egerton, successive lords of Flixton.... Adjoining the ample gardens and filbert grove was once a moat, which has partly disappeared. Shaw Hall is now used as a boarding-school, a purpose to which, by its situation, it seems well adapted." I cannot leave this place without mentioning, that the, then, tenant of the hall was a poet of no mean promise, who has contributed an interesting volume of poems and songs to the literature of this district. From the high road, a little beyond the hall, the most prominent and pleasing object in the landscape is the old parish church of Flixton, standing in its still more ancient graveyard, upon the brow of a green knoll, about an arrow's flight off; with the village of Flixton clustered behind it. At the foot of that green knoll, to the westward, where all the country beyond is one unbroken green,

The river glideth by the hamlet old.

The ground occupied by the church seemed to me the highest in the landscape; and the venerable fane stands there, looking round upon the quiet parish like a mother watching her children at play, and waiting till they come home, tired, to lie down and sleep with the rest. It was getting late in the evening when I sauntered about the churchyard, looking over the gravestones of Warburtons, Taylors, Cowpes, Gilbodys, Egertons, and Owens of Carrington. Among the rest, I found the following well-known epitaph, upon William Oldfield of Stretford, smith:--

My anvil and my hammer lie declined, My bellows have quite lost their wind; My coals are done, my debt is paid, My vices in the dust are laid.

This epitaph, which appears here in such an imperfect shape, is commonly attributed to Tim. In Rochdale parish churchyard, it appears in a much completer form on the gravestone of a blacksmith, who lived in Tim's time.

I rambled about the old village a while in the dusk. Now and then a villager lounged along in the direction of the inn, near the church; where I could hear several boisterous country fellows talking together in high glee, while one of them sang snatches of an old ballad, called the "Golden Glove:"--

Coat, waistcoat, and breeches she then did put on, And a-hunting she went with her dog and gun; She hunted all around where the farmer did dwell, Because in her heart she did love him full well.

At length the horses were put to, and we got fairly upon the road, which took us back in another direction, round by Davy Hulme, the seat of the Norreys family. Immediately after clearing the village, Flixton House was pointed out to me; "a plain family mansion, with extensive grounds and gardens." The wind was cold, and the shades of night gathered fast around; and before we quitted Flixton parish, the birthplace of Tim Bobbin had faded from my view. I felt disappointed in finding that the place of his nativity yielded so little reminiscence of our worthy old local humorist; the simple reason for which is, that very little is known of him there. But there was compensating pleasure to me in meeting with so many interesting things there which I did not go in search of.

Ramble from Rochdale to the Top of Blackstone Edge.

And so by many winding nooks he strays, With willing sport. --SHAKSPERE.

Well may Englishmen cherish the memory of their forefathers, and love their native land. It has risen to its present power among the nations of the world through the efforts of many generations of heroic people; and the firmament of its biography is illumined by stars of the first magnitude. What we know of its history previous to the conquest by the Romans, is clouded by conjecture and romance; but we have sufficient evidence to show that, even then, this gem, "set in the silver sea," was known in distant regions of the earth, for its natural riches; and was inhabited by a brave and ingenious race of people. During the last two thousand years, the masters of the world have been fighting to win it, or to keep it. The woad-stained British savage, ardent, imaginative, and brave, roved through its woods and marshes, hunting the wild beasts of the island. He sometimes herded cattle, but was little given to tillage. He sold tin to the Phoenicians, and knew something about smelting iron ore, and working it into such shapes as were useful in a life of wild insecurity and warfare, such as his. In the slim coracle, he roamed the island's waters; and scoured its plains in battle, in his scythed car, a terror to the boldest foe. He worshipped, too, in an awful way, in sombre old woods, and colossal Stonehenges, under the blue, o'er-arching sky. On lone wastes, and moorland hills, we still have the relics of these ancient temples, frowning at time, and seeming to say, as they look on nature's ever-returning green,--in the words of their old Druids--

Everything comes out of the ground but the dead.

But destiny had other things in store for these islands. The legions of imperial Rome came down upon the wild Celt, who retired, fiercely contending, to the mountain fastnesses of the north and west. Four hundred years the Roman wrought and ruled in Britain; and he left the broad red mark of his way of living stamped upon the face of the country, and upon its institutions, when his empire declined. The steadfast Saxon followed,--"stubborn, taciturn, sulky, indomitable, rock-made,"--a farmer and a fighter; a man of sense, and spirit, and integrity; an industrious man, and a home-bird. The Saxon never loosed his hold; even though his wild Scandinavian kinsmen, the sea-kings, and jarls of the north, came rushing to battle, with their piratical multitudes, tossing their swords into the air, and singing heroic ballads, as they slew their foemen, under the banner of the Black Raven. Then came the military Norman,--a northern pirate, trained in France to the art of war,--led on by the bold Duke William, who landed his warriors at Pevensey, and burnt the fleet that brought them to the shore, in order to bind his soldiers to the necessity of victory or death. Duke William conquered, and Harold, the Saxon, fell at Hastings, with an arrow in his brain. Each of these races has left its peculiarities stamped upon the institutions of the country; but most enduring of all,--the Saxon. And now, the labours of twenty centuries of valiant men, in peace and war, have achieved a matchless power, and freedom for us, and have bestrewn the face of the land with "the charms which follow long history." The country of Caractacus and Boadicea, where Alfred ruled, and Shakspere and Milton sang, will henceforth always be interesting to men of intelligent minds, wherever they were born. It is pleasant, also, to the eye, as it is instructive to the mind. Its history is written all over the soil, not only in strong evidences of its present genius and power, but in thousands of relics of its ancient fame and characteristics. In a letter, written by Lord Jeffrey, to his sister-in-law, an American lady, respecting what Old England is like, and in what it differs most from America, he says: "It differs mostly, I think, in the visible memorials of antiquity with which it is overspread; the superior beauty of its verdure, and the more tasteful and happy state and distribution of its woods. Everything around you here is historical, and leads to romantic or interesting recollections. Gray-grown church towers, cathedrals, ruined abbeys, castles of all sizes and descriptions, in all stages of decay, from those that are inhabited, to those in whose moats ancient trees are growing, and ivy mantling over their mouldering fragments; ... and massive stone bridges over lazy waters; and churches that look as old as Christianity; and beautiful groups of branchy trees; and a verdure like nothing else in the universe; and all the cottages and lawns fragrant with sweet briar and violets, and glowing with purple lilacs and white elders; and antique villages scattering round wide bright greens; with old trees and ponds, and a massive pair of oaken stocks preserved from the days of Alfred. With you everything is new, and glaring, and angular, and withal rather frail, slight, and perishable; nothing soft, and mellow, and venerable, or that looks as if it would ever become so." This charming picture is almost entirely compounded from the most interesting features of the rural and antique: and is, therefore, more applicable to those agricultural parts of England which have been little changed by the events of its modern history, than to those districts which have been so changed by the peaceful revolutions of manufacture in these days. But, even in the manufacturing districts, where forests of chimneys rear their tall shafts, upon ground once covered with the woodland shade, or sparsely dotted with quaint hamlets,--the venerable monuments of old English life peep out in a beautiful way, among crowding evidences of modern power and population. And the influences which have so greatly changed the appearance of the country there, have not passed over the people without effect. Wherever the genius of commerce may be leading us to, there is no doubt that the old controls of feudalism are breaking up; and in the new state of things the people of South Lancashire have found greater liberty to improve their individual qualities and conditions; fairer chances of increasing their might and asserting their rights; greater power to examine and understand all questions which come before them, and to estimate and influence their rulers, than they had under the unreasoning domination which is passing away. They are not a people inclined to anarchy. They love order as well as freedom, and they love freedom for the sake of having order established upon just principles.

The course of events during the last fifty years has been steadily upheaving the people of South Lancashire out of the thraldom of those orders which have long striven to conserve such things as tended to their own aggrandisement, at the expense of the rights of others. But even that part of the aristocracy of England which has not yet so far cast the slough of its hereditary prejudices as to see that the days are gone which nurtured such ascendancies, at least perceives that, in the manufacturing districts, it now walks in a world where few are disposed to accept its assumption of superiority, without inquiring into the nature of it. When a people who aspire to independence, begin to know how to get it, and how to use it wisely, the methods of rule that were made for slaves, will no longer answer their purpose; the pride of little minds in great places, begins to canker them, and they must give them the wall now and then, and look somewhere else for foot-lickers. The aristocracy of England are not all of them overwhelmed by the dignity of their "ancient descent." There are naturally-noble men among them, who can discern between living truth and dead tradition; men who do not think that the possession of a landed estate entitles its owner to extraordinary rights of domination over his acreless neighbours; or that, on that account alone, the rest of the world should fall down and worship at the feet of an ordinary person, more remarkable for an incomprehensible way of deporting himself, than for being a better man than his neighbours.

Through the streets of South Lancashire towns still, occasionally, roll the escutcheoned equipages of those exclusive families, who turn up the nose at the "lower orders;" and cherish a dim remembrance of the "good old times" when these lurdanes wore the collars of their ancestors upon the neck. To my thinking, the very carriage has a sort of lonely, unowned and unowning look, and never seems at home till it gets back to the coach-house; for the troops of factory lads, and other hard-working rabble, clatter merrily about the streets, looking villainously unconscious of anything particularly august in the nature of the show which is going by. On the driving-box sits a man with a beefy face, and a comically-subdued way of holding his countenance, grand over all with "horse-gowd," and gilt buttons, elaborate with heraldic device. Another such person, with silky calves, and a "smoke-jack" upon his hat, and breeches of plush, stands on the platform behind. It is all no use. There are corners of England where such a sight is still enough to throw a whole village into fits; but, in the manufacturing towns, a travelling instalment of Wombwell's menagerie, with the portrait of a cub rhinoceros in front, would create more stir. Inside the carriage there reclines,--chewing the cud of unacknowledged pride,--one of that rare brood of dignitaries, a man with "ancestors," who plumes himself upon the distinguished privilege of being the son of somebody or another, who was the son of somebody else, and so on;--till it gets to some burglarious person, who, in company with several others of the same kidney, once pillaged an old estate, robbed a church, and did many other such deeds, in places where the law was too weak to protect the weak; and there is an eternal blazon of armorial fuss kept up in celebration of it, on the family shield. But, admitting that these things were in keeping with the spirit and necessities of the time, and with "the right of conquest," and such like, why should their descendants take to themselves airs on that account, and consider themselves the supreme "somebodies" of the land, for such worn-out reasons? Let any landlord who still tunes his pride according to the feudal gamut of his forefathers, acquaint himself with the tone of popular feeling in the manufacturing districts. Let "John" lower the steps, and with earth-directed eyes hold the carriage door, whilst our son of a hundred fathers walks forth into the streets of a manufacturing town, to try the magic of his ancient name among the workmen as they hurry to dinner. Where are the hat-touchers gone? If he be a landlord, with nothing better than tracts of earth to recommend him, the mechanical rabble jostle him as if he was "only a pauper whom nobody owns," or some wandering cow-jobber. He goes worshipless on his way, unless he happens to meet with one of the servants from the hall, or his butcher, or the parish clerk, or the man who rings the eight o'clock bell, and they treat him to a bend sinister. As to the pride of "ancient descent," what does it mean, apart from the renown of noble deeds? The poor folk in Lancashire cherish an old superstition that "we're o' somebory's childer,"--which would be found very near the truth, if fairly looked into. And if Collop the cotton weaver's genealogy was correctly traced, it would probably run back to the year "one;" or, as he expresses it himself, to the time "when Adam wur a lad." Everything has its day. In some parts of Lancashire, the rattle of the railway train, and the bustle of traffic and labour, have drowned the tones of the hunting horn, and the chiming cry of the harriers. But whatever succeeds the decay of feudalism, the architectural relics of Old English life in Lancashire will always be interesting, and venerable as the head of a fine old man, on whose brow "the snow-fall of time" has long been stealing. May no ruder hand than the hand of time destroy these eloquent footprints of old thought which remain among us! Some men are like Burns's mouse,--the present only touches them; but any man who has the slightest title to the name of a creature of "large discourse," will be willing, now and then, to look contemplatively over his shoulder, into the grass-grown aisles of the past.

It was in that pleasant season of the year when fresh buds begin to shoot from the thorn: when the daisy and the little celandine, and the early primrose, peep from the ground, that I began to plot for another stroll through my native vale of the Roch, up to the top of "Blackstone Edge." Those mountain wastes are familiar to me. When I was a child, they rose up constantly in sight, with a silent, majestic look. The sun came from behind them in a morning, pouring its flood of splendour upon the busy valley, the winding river, and its little tributaries. I imbibed a strong attachment to those hills; and oft as opportunity would allow, I rushed towards them; for they were kindly and congenial to my mind. And now, in the crowded city, when I think of them and of the country they look down upon, it stirs within me a

Wide sea that one continuous murmur breaks Along the pebbled shore of memory.

But at this particular time, an additional motive enticed me to my old wandering ground. The whole of the road leading to it was lined with interesting places, and associations. But, among the railways, and manifold other ways and means of travel, which now cover the country with an irregular net-work, I found, on looking over a recent map, a solitary line running in short, broken distances; and, on the approach of towns and habited spots, diving under, like a mole or an otter. It looked like a broken thread, here and there, in the mazy web of the map, and it was accompanied by the words "Roman Road," which had a little interest for me. I know there are people who would sneer at the idea of any importance being attached to an impracticable, out-of-the-way road, nearly two thousand years old, and leading to nowhere in particular, except, like the ways of the wicked, into all sorts of sloughs and difficulties. With them, one passable macadamised way, on which a cart could go to market, is worth all the ruined Watling-streets in Britain. And they are right, so far as their wisdom goes. The present generation must be served with market stuff, come what may of our museums. But still, everything in the world is full of manifold services to man, who is himself full of manifold needs. And thought can leave the telegraphic message behind, panting for breath upon the railway wires. The whole is either "cupboard for food," or "cabinet of pleasure;" therefore, let the hungry soul look round upon its estate and turn the universe to nutriment, if it can; for

There's not a breath Will mingle kindly with the meadow air, Till it has panted round, and stolen a share Of passion from the heart.

And though the moorland pack-horse and the rambling besom-maker stumble and get entangled in grass, and sloughs, and matted brushwood, upon deserted roads, still that nimble Mercury, Thought, can flit over the silent waste, side by side with the shades of those formidable soldiers who have now slept nearly two thousand years in the cold ground.

It has not been my lot to see many of the vestiges of Roman life in Britain; yet, whatever the historians say about them has had interest for me; especially when it related to the connection of the Romans with my native district; for, in addition to its growing modern interest, I eagerly seized every fact of historical association calculated to enrich the vesture in which my mind had long been enrobing the place. I had read of the Roman station at Littleborough; of the Roman road in the neighbourhood; of interesting ancient relics, Roman and other, discovered thereabouts; and other matter of the like nature. My walks had been wide and frequent in the country about Rochdale; and many a time have I lingered and wondered at Littleborough, near the spot where history says that the Romans encamped themselves, at the foot of Blackstone Edge, at the entrance of what would, then, be the impassable hills, and woody glens, and swampy bottoms of the Todmorden district. Yet I have never met with any visible remnants of such historical antiquities of the locality; and though, when wandering about the high moors in that quarter, I have more than once crossed the track of the Roman road up there, and noticed a general peculiarity of feature about the place, I little thought that I was floundering, through moss and heather, upon one of these famous old highways. I endeavoured to hold the bit upon my own eagerness; and read of these things with a reservation of credence, lest I should delude myself into receiving the invention of a brain mad with ancientry for a genuine relic of the eld. But one day, early in the year, happening to call upon a young friend of mine, in Rochdale, whose tastes are a little congenial to my own, we talked of a stroll towards the hills; and he again showed me the line of the Roman road, on Blackstone Edge, marked in the recent Ordnance map. We then went forth, bare-headed, into the yard of his father's house, at Wardleworth Brow, from whence the view of the hills, on the east, is fine. The air was clear, and the sunshine so favourably subdued, that the objects and tints of the landscape were uncommonly distinct. He pointed to a regular stripe of land, of greener hue than the rest of the moorland, rising up the dark side of Blackstone Edge. The green stripe was the line of the Roman road. He had lately visited it, and traced its uniform width for miles, and the peculiarities of its pavement of native sandstone, overgrown with a thick tanglement of moss, and heather, and moorland lichens. He was an old acquaintance, of known integrity, and sound judgment, and, withal, more addicted to figures of arithmetic than figures of speech; so, upon his testimony, I resolved that I would bring my unstable faith to the ordeal of ocular proof, that I might, at once, draft it out of the region of doubt, or sweep it from the chambers of my brain, like a festoonery of cobwebs from a neglected corner, The prospect of another visit to the scenery of the "Edge," another snuff of the mountain air, and a little more talk with the old-world folk in the villages upon the road thither, rose up pleasantly in my mind, and the purpose took the shape of action about St. Valentine's tide.

Having arranged to be called up at five on the morning of my intended trip, I jumped out of bed when the knock came to my chamber-door, dressed, and started forth to catch the first train from Manchester. The streets were silent and still, except where one or two "early birds" of the city had gathered round a "saloop" stall; or a solitary policeman kept the lounging tenor of his way along the pavement; and here and there a brisk straggler, with a pipe in his mouth, his echoing steps contrasting strangely with the sleeping city's morning stillness. The day was ushered in with gusts of wind and rain, and, when I got to the station, both my coat and my expectations were a little damped by the weather. But, by the time the train reached Rochdale, the sky had cleared up, and the breeze had sunk down to a whisper, just cool enough to make the sunshine pleasant. The birds were twittering about, and drops of rain twinkled on the hedges and tufts of grass in the fields; where spring was quietly spreading out her green mantle again. I wished to have as wide a ramble at the farther end as time would allow; and, as moor-tramping is about the most laborious foot exercise that mortal man can bend his instep to, except running through a ploughed field, in iron-plated clogs,--an ordeal which Lancashire trainers sometimes put their foot-racers through,--it was considered advisable to hire a conveyance. We could go further, stop longer, and return at ease, when we liked, after we had tired ourselves to our heart's content upon the moors. I went down to the Reed Inn, for a vehicle. Mine host came out to the top of the steps which lead down into the stable-yard, and, leaning over the railings, called his principal ostler from the room below. That functionary was a broad-set, short-necked man, with a comely face, and a staid, laconic look. He told us, with Spartan brevity, that there had been a run upon gigs, but he could find us a "Whitechapel," and "Grey Bobby." "Grey Bobby" and the "Whitechapel" were agreed to at once, and in ten minutes I was driving up Yorkshire-street, to pick up my friends at Wardleworth Brow, on the eastern edge of the town. Giving the reins to a lad in the street, I went into the house, and took some refreshment with the rest of them, before starting; and, in a few minutes more, we were all seated, and away down the slope of Heybrook, on the Littleborough Road. Our tit had a mercurial trick of romping on his hind legs, at the start; but apart from this, he went a steady, telling pace, and we looked about us quite at ease as we sped along.

Heybrook, at the foot of Wardleworth Brow, is one of the pleasantest entrances to Rochdale town. There is a touch of suburban peace and prettiness about it; and the prospect, on all sides, is agreeable to the eye. The park-like lands of Foxholes and Hamer lie close by the north side of the road. The lower part of these grounds consists of rich, flat meadows, divided by a merry little brook, which flows from the hills on the north, above "Th' Syke." In its course from the moors, to the river Roch, it takes the name of each locality it passes through, and is called "Syke Brook," "Buckley Brook," and "Hey Brook;" and, on its way, it gathers tributary rindles of water from Clough House, Knowl, and Knowl Syke. As the Foxholes grounds recede from the high road, they undulate, until they rise into an expansive, lawny slope, clothed with a verdure which looks--when wet with summer rain or dew--"like nothing else in the universe," out of England. This slope is tastefully crowned with trees. Foxholes Hall is situated among its old woods and lawns, retiringly, upon the summit of this swelling upland, which rises from the level of Heybrook. It is a choice corner of the earth, and the view thence, between the woods, across the lawn and meadows, and over a picturesquely-varied country, to the blue hills in the south-east, is perhaps not equalled in the neighbourhood. Pleasant and green as much of the land in this district looks now, still the general character of the soil, and the whole of its features, shows that when nature had it to herself very much of it must have been sterile or swampy. Looking towards Foxholes, from the road-side at Heybrook, over the tall ancestral trees, we can see the still taller chimney of John Bright and Brothers' mill, peering up significantly behind; and the sound of their factory bell now mingles with the cawing of an ancient colony of rooks in the Foxholes woods. Foxholes is the seat of the Entwisles, a distinguished old Lancashire family. In the time of Camden, the historian, this family was seated at Entwisle Hall, near Bolton-le-Moors. George Entwisle de Entwisle left as heir his brother William, who married Alice, daughter of Bradshaw, of Bradshaw. His son Edmund, the first Entwisle of Foxholes, near Rochdale, built the old hall, which stood on the site of the present one. He married a daughter of Arthur Ashton, of Clegg; and his son Richard married Grace, the daughter of Robert Chadwick, of Healey Hall. In the parish church there is a tablet to the memory of Sir Bertin Entwisle, who fought at Agincourt, on St. Crispin's Day, in Henry the Fifth's time. When a lad, I used to con over this tablet, and I wove a world of romance around this mysterious "Sir Bertin," and connected him with all that I had heard of the prowess of old English chivalry. The tablet runs thus:--

To perpetuate a memorial erected in the church of St Peter's, St. Albans (perished by time), this marble is here placed to the memory of a gallant and loyal man--Sir Bertin Entwisle, Knt., viscount and baron of Brybeke, in Normandy, and some time bailiff of Constantine, in which office he succeeded his brother-in-law, Sir John Ashton, whose daughter first married Sir Richard le Byron, an ancestor of the Lords Byron, of Rochdale, and, secondly, Sir Bertin Entwisle, who, after repeated acts of honour in the service of his sovereigns, Henrys the Fifth and Sixth, more particularly at Agincourt, was killed in the first battle of St Albans, and on his tombstone was recorded in brass the follow inscription:--"Here lyeth Sir Bertin Entwisle, Knight, who was born in Lancastershyre, and was viscount and baron of Brybeke, in Normandy, and bailiff of Constantine, who died, fighting on King Henry the Sixth's party, the 28th May 1455, on whose soul Jesus have mercy."

Close by the stone-bridge at Heybrook, two large old trees stand in the Entwisle grounds, one on each bank of the stream, and partly overhanging the road; they stand there alone, as if to mark where a forest has been. The tired country weaver, carrying his piece to the town, lays down his burden on the parapet, wipes his brow, and rests under their shade. I have gone sometimes, on bright nights, to lean upon the bridge and look around there, and I have heard many a plaintive trio sung by these old trees and the brook below, while the moonlight danced among the leaves.

The whole valley of the Roch is a succession of green knolls, and dingles, and little receding vales, with now and then a barren stripe, like "Cronkeyshaw," or a patch of the once large mosses, like "Turf Moss;" and little holts and holms, no two alike in feature or extent, dotted, now and then, with tufts of stunted wood, with many a clear brook and silvery rill between. On the south side of the bridge at Heybrook, the streamlet from the north runs through the meadows a short distance, and empties itself into the Roch. The confluence of the waters there is known to the neighbour lads by the name of the "Greyt Meetin's," where, in past years, I have

Paidle't through the burn When simmer days were fine,

in a certain young companionship--now more scattered than last autumn's leaves; some in other towns, one or two only still here, and the rest in Australia, or in the grave. We now no longer strip in the field there, and leaving our clothes and books upon the hedge side, go frolicking down to the river, to have a water battle and a bathe--finishing by drying ourselves with our shirts, or by running in the wind on the green bank. I remember that sometimes, whilst we were in the height of our sport, the sentinel left upon the brink of the river would catch a glimpse of the owner of the fields, coming hastily towards the spot, in wrathful mood; whereupon every naked imp rushed from the water, seized his clothes, and fled from field to field, till he reached some nook where he could put them on. From the southern margin of the Roch, the land rises in a green elevation, on which the hamlet of Belfield is seen peeping up. The tree-tops of Belfield Wood are in sight, but the ancient hall is hidden. A little vale on the west, watered by the Biel, divides Belfield Hall from the hamlet of Newbold, on the summit of the opposite bank. So early as the commencement of the twelfth century, a family had adopted the local name, and resided in the mansion till about the year 1290, when the estate was transferred to the family of Butterworth, of Butterworth Hall, near Milnrow. I find the Belfield family mentioned in Gastrel's "Notitia Cestriensis," p. 40, under the head "Leases granted by the bishop," where the following lease appears:--"An. 1546. Let by H. Ar. Belfield and Robt. Tatton, for 40 years, exceptis omus vicariis advocationibus ecclesiariu quarumcunque, (ing) to find great timber, tiles, and slate, and tenants to repair and find all other materials." The following note is attached to this lease:--"Arthur Belfield, of Clegg Hall, in the parish of Rochdale, gent., son and heir of Adam Belfield, was born in 1508, and succeeded his father in 1544. He is described in the lease as 'off our sayde sovaraigne lord's houshold, gentylman;' but what office he held is, at present, unknown. He was a near relative of the Hopwoods, of Hopwood, and Chethams, of Nuthurst." In the year 1274, Geoffry de Butterworth, a descendent of Reginald de Boterworth, first lord of the township of Butterworth, in the reign of Stephen, 1148, sold or exchanged the family mansion of Butterworth Hall, with John Byron, ancestor of Lord Byron, the poet, and took possession (by purchase or otherwise) of Belfield, which was part of the original possession of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. When the monks of Stanlaw, in Cheshire--disliking their low, swampy situation there, which was subject to inundation at spring tide--removed to the old deanery of Whalley, before entering the abbey there, in the roll of the fraternity four seem to have been natives of Rochdale, among whom was John de Belfield, afterwards Abbot of Whalley, of the ancient stock of Belfield Hall, in Butterworth. Robert de Butterworth was killed at the battle of Towton, in 1461. The last of the name, at Belfield, was Alexander Butterworth, born in 1640, in the reign of Charles the First. The present occupants of the estate have tastefully preserved the old interesting features of the hall, whilst they have greatly improved its condition and environments. The stone gateway, leading to the inner court-yard of Belfield Hall, is still standing, as well as a considerable portion of the old hall which surrounded this inner court. The antique character of the building is best seen from the quadrangular court-yard in the centre. The door of the great kitchen formerly opened into this court-yard, and the victuals used to be brought out thence, and handed by the cooks through a square opening in the wall of the great dining-room, on the north side of the yard, to the waiters inside. The interior of the building still retains many quaint features of its olden time--heavy oak-beams, low ceilings, and tortuous corners. Every effort has been made to line the house with an air of modern comfort; still the house is said to be a cold one, partly from its situation, and partly from the porous nature of the old walls; producing an effect something like that of a wine-cooler. That part of the building which now forms the rear, used, in old times, to be the main front. In one of the rooms, there are still some relics of the ancient oak-carving which lined the walls of the hall. Among them there are three figures in carved oak, which formed part of the wainscot of a cornice, above one of the fire-places. These were the figures of a king and two queens, quaintly cut; and the remnants of old painting upon the figures, and the rich gilding upon the crowns, still show traces of their highly-ornamented, ancient appearance. The roads in the neighbourhood of the hall are now good. The hamlets of Newbold and Belfield are thriving, with substantial, healthy dwellings. Shady walks are laid among the plantations; and the springs of excellent water are now gathered into clear terraced pools and a serpentine lake, glittering among gardens and cultivated grounds.

Leaving Heybrook, we passed by Hamer Hall, which was the seat of a family of the same name, before Henry the Fourth's time. A large cotton-mill now stands close behind the hall. A few yards through the toll-bar, we passed the "Entwisle Arms," bearing the motto, "Par se signe à Azincourt." A traveller seldom needs to ask the names of the old lords of the land in England. Let him keep an eye to the sign-boards, and he is sure to find that part of the history of the locality swinging in the wind, or stapled up over the entrance of some neighbouring alehouse. And, in the same barmy atmosphere, he may learn, at least, as much heraldry as he will be able to find a market for on the Manchester Exchange. The public-house signs in our old towns are generally very loyal and heraldic, and sometimes touched with a little jovial devotion. The arms of kings, queens, and bishops; and mitres, chapel-houses, angels, and "amen corners," mingling with "many a crest that is famous in story;" the arms of the Stanleys, Byrons, Asshetons, Traffords, Lacys, Wiltons, De-la-Warres, Houghtons, Molyneuxs, Pilkingtons, Radcliffes, and a long roll of old Lancashire gentry, whose fame is faintly commemorated in these alehouse signs; and, among the mottoes of these emblazonments, we now and then meet with an ancient war-cry, which makes one's blood start into tumult, when we think how it may have sounded on the fields of Cressy, Agincourt, Towton, or Flodden. Among these are sprinkled spread eagles, dragons, griffins, unicorns, and horses, black, white, bay, and grey, with corresponding mares, and shoes enow for them all. Boars, in every position and state of temper; bulls, some crowned, some with rings in the nose, like our friend "John" of that name. Foxes, too, and dogs, presenting their noses with admirable directness of purpose at something in the next street; and innocent-looking partridges, who appear reckless of the intentions of the sanguinary wretch in green, who is erroneously supposed to be _lurking_ behind the bush, with a gun in his hand. Talbots, falcons, hawks, hounds and huntsmen, the latter sometimes in "full cry," but almost always considerably "at fault," so far as perspective goes. Swans, black and white, with any number of necks that can be reasonably expected; stags, saints, saracens, jolly millers, boars' heads, blue bells, pack-horses, lambs, rams, and trees of oak and yew. The seven stars, and, now and then, a great bear. Lions, of all colours, conditions, and positions--resting, romping, and running; with a number of apocryphal animals, not explainable by any natural history extant, nor to be found anywhere, I believe, except in the swamps and jungles of some drunken dauber's brain. Also a few "Jolly Waggoners," grinning extensively at foaming flagons of ale, garnished with piles of bread and cheese, and onions as big as cannon-balls, as if to outface the proportions of the Colossus of Rhodes, who sits there in a state of stiff, everlasting, clumsy, good-tempered readiness, in front of his never-dwindling feed, Marlboroughs, Abercrombies, and Wellingtons; Duncans, Rodneys, and Nelsons, by dozens. I have seen an admiral painted on horseback, somewhere; but I never saw Cromwell on an alehouse sign yet. In addition to these, there are a few dukes, mostly of York and Clarence. Such signs as these show the old way of living and thinking. But, in our manufacturing towns, the tone of these old devices is considerably modified by an infusion of railway hotels, commercials, cotton-trees, shuttles, spindles, woolpacks, Bishop Blaizes, and "Old Looms;" and the arms of the ancient feudal gentry are outnumbered by the arms of shepherds, foresters, moulders, joiners, printers, bricklayers, painters, and several kinds of odd-fellows. The old "Legs of Man," too, are relieved by a comfortable sprinkling of legs and shoulders of mutton--considerably overdone by the weather, in some cases. Even alehouse signs are "signs of the times," if properly interpreted. But both men and alehouse signs may make up their minds to be misinterpreted a little in this world. Two country lasses, at Rochdale, one fair-day, walking by the Roebuck Inn, one of them, pointing to the gilded figure of the animal, with its head uplifted to an overhanging bunch of gilded grapes, said, "Sitho, sitho, Mary, at yon brass dog, heytin' brass marrables!"

About half-a-mile up the high road from Heybrook, and opposite to Shaw House, the view opens, and we can look across the fields on either side, into a country of green pastures and meadows, varied with fantastic hillocks and dells, though bare of trees. A short distance to the north-west, Buckley Hall lately stood, on a green eminence in sight from the road. But the old house of the Buckleys, of Buckley, recently disappeared from the knoll where it stood for centuries. Its thick, bemossed walls are gone, and all its quaint, abundant outhousing that stood about the spacious, balder-paved yard behind. This old hall gave name and residence to one of the most ancient families in Rochdale parish. The building was low, but very strongly built of stone of the district, and heavily timbered. It was not so large as Clegg Hall, nor Stubley Hall, nor as some other old halls in the parish; but, for its size, it proved a considerable quarry of stone and flag when taken down. The first occupier was Geoffry de Buckley, nephew to Geoffry, dean of Whalley, who lived in the time of Henry the Second. A descendant of this Geoffry de Buckley was slain in the battle of Evesham ("History of Whalley"). The name of John de Buckley appears among the monks of Stanlaw, in the year 1296. The arms of the Buckleys, of Buckley, are gules, a chevron sable; between three bulls' heads, armed proper; crest, on a wreath, a bull's head armed proper. Motto, "Nec temere nec timede." There is a chantry chapel at the south-east corner of Rochdale parish church, "founded in 1487, by Dr. Adam Marland, of Marland; Sir Randal Butterworth, of Belfield; and Sir James Middleton, 'a brotherhood maide and ordayned in the worship of the glorious Trinity, in the church of Rochdale;' Sir James being appointed Trinity priest during his lyfe; and, among other things, he was requested, when he went to the lavoratory, standing at the altar, and, twice a week, to pray for the co-founders, with 'De profundis.'" In this little chantry, there is a recumbent stone effigy of a mailed warrior, of the Buckley family, placed there by the present lord of the manor, whose property the chapel is now. I know that some of the country people who had been reared in the neighbourhood of Buckley Hall, watched its demolition with grieved hearts. And when the fine old hall at Radcliffe was taken down, not long since, an aged man stood by, vigorously denouncing the destroyers as the work went on, and glorying in every difficulty they met with; and they were not few, for it was a tough old place. "Poo," said he, "yo wastril devils, poo! Yo connut rive th' owd hole deawn for th' heart on yo! Yo'n ha' to blow it up wi' gunpeawdhur, bi'th mass. It wur noan bigged eawt o' club brass, that wur not, yo shabby thieves! Tay th' pattern on't, an' yo'n larn summat! What mak' o' trash wi'n yo stick up i'th place on't, when it's gwon? Those wholes u'll bide leynin again, better nor yors! Yo'n never big another heawse like that while yo'n teeth an' e'en in yor yeds! Eh, never, never! Yo hannut stuff to do it wi'!" But down came the old hall at Radcliffe; and so did Buckley Hall, lately; and the materials were dressed up to build the substantial row of modern cottages which now stand upon the same site, with pleasant gardens in front, sloping down the knoll, and over the spot where the old fish-pond was, at the bottom. Some of the workpeople at the neighbouring woollen mill find comfortable housing there now. There is an old tradition, respecting the Buckley family, connected with a massive iron ring which was found fastened in the flooring of a deserted chamber of the hall. A greyhound, belonging to this family, whilst in London with its master, took off homeward on being startled by the fall of a heavy package, in Cheapside, and was found dead on the door-step of Buckley Hall at five next morning, after having run one hundred and ninety-six miles in sixteen hours. When visiting relatives of mine near Buckley, I met with a story relating to one of the Buckleys of old, who was a dread to the country side; how he pursued a Rossendale rider, who had crossed the moors from the forest, to recover a stolen horse from the stables of Buckley Hall by night; and how this Buckley, of Buckley, overtook and shot him, at a lonely place called "Th' Hillock," between Buckley and Rooley Moor. There are other floating oral traditions connected with Buckley Hall, especially the tale of "The Gentle Shepherdess," embodying the romantic adventures, and unfortunate fate of a lady belonging to the family of Buckley, of Buckley. And in this wide parish of Rochdale, in the eastern nook of Lancashire,--once a country fertile in spots of lone and rural prettiness, and thinly inhabited by as quaint, hearty, and primitive a people as any in England,--there is many a picturesque and storied dell; some tales of historic interest; and many an interesting legend connected with the country, or with the old families of the parish;--the Byrons, of Butterworth Hall, barons of Rochdale; the Entwisles, of Foxholes; the Crossleys, of Scaitcliffe; the Holts, of Stubley, Grislehurst, and Castleton; the Cleggs, of Clegg Hall, the scene of the tradition of "Clegg Ho' Boggart;" the Buckleys, of Buckley; the Marlands, of Marland; the Howards, of Great Howard; the Chadwicks, of Chadwick Hall, and Healey Hall; the Bamfords, of Bamford; the Schofields, of Schofield; the Butterworths; the Belfields; and many other families of ancient note, often bearing the names of their own estates, in the old way.

In this part of South Lancashire, the traveller never meets any considerable extent of level land; and, though the county contains great moors, and some mosses, yet there is not such another expansive tract of level country to be found in it as "Chat Moss," that lonely grave of old forests. South-east Lancashire is all picturesque ups and downs, retired nooks, and "quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles," and little winding vales, with endless freaks of hill and hillock, knoll and dell, dingle and shady cleft, laced with numerous small streamlets, and clear rindles of babbling water, up to the foot of that wilderness of moorland hills, the "Back-bone of England," which runs across the island, from Derbyshire into Scotland, and forms a considerable part of Lancashire upon its way. The parish of Rochdale partly consists of, and is bounded by, this tract of hills on the east and north; and what may be called the lowland part of the parish looks, when seen from some of the hills in the immediate neighbourhood, something like a sea of tempest-tossed meadows and pasture lands, upon which fleets of cotton mills ride at anchor, their brick masts rising high into the air, and their streamers of smoke waving in the wind.

Leaving the open part of the high road, opposite Shaw House, and losing sight of Buckley, we began to rise as we passed through Brickfield up to Smallbridge. This village is seated on an elevation, sloping gently from the northern bank of the river Roch, which rise continues slightly through the village, and up northward, with many a dip and frolic by the way, till it reaches the hills above Wardle Fold, where nature leaps up in a wild and desolate mood. Some of the lonely heights thereabouts have been beacon stations, in old times, and their names indicate their ancient uses, as "Ward Hill," above the village of Wardle. "Jack th' Huntsman" used to declare, vehemently, that Brown Wardle Hill was "th' finest hunting-greawnd i' Lancashire." And then there is "Tooter's Hill," "Hornblower's Hill," and "Hade's Hill." From the summit of the last, the waters descend on one side to the Irish Sea, on the west, on the other to the German Ocean, on the east. The remains of a large beacon are still visible on the top of it. Looking southward, from the edge of Smallbridge, the dale lies green and fair in the hollow below, and the silent Roch winds through it towards Rochdale town. The view stretches out several miles beyond the opposite bank of the river, over the romantic township of Butterworth, up to the Saddleworth hills. Green and picturesque, a country of dairy farms, producing matchless milk and butter; yet the soil is evidently too cold and poor for the successful production of any kind of grain, except the hardy oat--and that crop mostly thin and light as an old man's hair. But even this extensive view over a beautiful scene, in other respects, lacks the charm which green woods lend to a landscape; for, except a few diminutive tufts and scattered patches, where young plantations struggle up, there are scarcely any trees. From Smallbridge, taking a south-east direction, up by "Tunshill," "Dolderum," "Longden End," and "Booth Dean," and over the Stanedge road, into the ravines of Saddleworth, would be a long flight for the crow; but to anybody who had to foot the road thither, it would prove a rougher piece of work than it looks. The village of Smallbridge itself consists principally of one street, about half a mile long, lining the high road from Rochdale to Littleborough. It will have a dull, uninteresting look to a person who knows nothing, previously, of the place, nor of the curious generation dwelling thereabouts. Smallbridge has a plain, hard-working, unpolished, every-day look. No wandering artist, in search of romantic bits of village scenery, would halt enchanted with Smallbridge. It has no architectural relic of the olden time in it, nor any remarkable modern building--nothing which would tell a careless eye that it had been the homestead of many generations of Lancashire men. It consists, chiefly, of the brick-built cottages, inhabited by weavers, colliers, and factory operatives, relieved by the new Episcopalian church, at the eastern end, the little pepper-box bell-turret of which peeps up over the houses, as if to remind the rude inhabitants of something higher than bacon-collops and ale. About half a mile up the road which leads out of the centre of the village, northward, stands a plain-looking stone mansion, apparently about one hundred and fifty years old, called "Great Howarth." It stands upon a shapely knoll, the site of an older hall of the same name, and has pleasant slopes of green land about it, and a wide prospect over hill and dale. Extensive alterations, in the course of the last hundred years, have destroyed most of the evidences of this place's age and importance; but its situation, and the ancient outbuildings behind, and the fold of cottages nestling near to the western side of the hall, with peeping bits of stone foundation, of much older date than the building standing upon them; the old wells, and the hue of the lands round about; all show that it has been a place of greater note than it is at present. This great Howarth, or Howard, is said to be the original settlement of the Howard family, the present Dukes of Norfolk. Some people in the neighbourhood also seem to believe this, for, as we entered Smallbridge, we passed "The Norfolk Arms," a little public-house. One Osbert Howard was rewarded by Henry I. ("Beauclerk") for his faithful services, with lands situate in the township of Honorsfield, or Hundersfield, in the parish of Rochdale, also with what is called "the dignified title of Master of the Buck Hounds." Robertus Howard, Abbot of Stanlaw, was one of the four monks from this parish, whose names appear among the list of the fraternity, at the time of their translation to Whalley. He died on the 10th of May, 1304. Dugdale, in his "Baronage of England," says, respecting the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk:--"I do not make any mention thereof above the time of King Edward the First, some supposing that their common ancestor, in the Saxon's time, took his original appellation from an eminent office or command; others, afterwards, from the name of a place." ... "I shall, therefore (after much fruitless search to satisfy myself, as well as others, on this point) begin with William Howard, a learned and reverend judge of the Court of Common Pleas, for a great part of King Edward the First's and beginning of Edward the Second's time." So that there seems to be a possibility of truth in the assertion that Great Howard, or Howarth, near Smallbridge, was the original settlement of the Howards, ancestors of the Dukes of Norfolk. But I must leave the matter to those who have better and completer evidence than this. Aiken, in his "History of Manchester," mentions a direful pestilence, which severely afflicted that town about the year 1645. A pestilence called the "Black Plague" raged in the parish of Rochdale about the same time. "The whole district being filled with dismay, none dared, from the country, to approach the town, for fear of catching the contagion; therefore, to remedy, as much as possible, the inconvenience of non-intercourse between the country and town's people, the proprietor of Great Howarth directed a cross to be raised on a certain part of his estate, near to Black Lane End, at Smallbridge, for the purpose of holding a temporary market there, during the continuance of the plague." Thence originated "Howarth Cross," so named to this day; also, the old "Milk Stones," or "Plague Stones," lately standing at about a mile's distance from the town of Rochdale, upon the old roads. I well remember two of these, which were large, heavy flag-stones, with one end imbedded in the edge side, and the other end supported upon rude stone pillars. One of these two was in "Milk Stone Lane," leading towards Oldham, and the other at "Sparth," about a mile on the Manchester road. This last of these old "Milk Stones," or "Plague Stones," was recently taken down. I find that similar stones were erected in the outlets of Manchester, for the same purpose, during the pestilence, about 1645. The village of Smallbridge itself, as I have said before, has not much either of modern grace or antique interest about its outward appearance. But, in the secluded folds and corners of the country around, there is many a quaint farmstead of the seventeenth century, or earlier, such as Waterhouse, Ashbrook Hey, Howarth Knowl, Little Howarth, Dearnley, Mabroyd, Wuerdle, Little Clegg, Clegg Hall (the haunt of the famous "Clegg Ho' Boggart"). Wardle Fold, near Wardle Hall, was fifty years since only a small sequestered cluster of rough stone houses, at the foot of the moorland heights, on the north, and about a mile from Smallbridge. It has thriven considerably by manufacture since then. In some of these old settlements there are houses where the door is still opened from without by a "sneck-bant," or "finger-hole." Some of these old houses have been little changed for two or three centuries; around others a little modern addition has gathered in the course of time; but the old way of living and thinking lingers in these remote corners still, like little standing pools, left by the tide of ancient manners, which has gone down, and is becoming matter of history or of remembrance. There, and in the still more lonely detached dwellings and folds, which are scattered among the hills and cloughs of the "Edge," they cling to the speech, and ways, and superstitions of their rude forefathers. A tribe of hardy, industrious, old-fashioned, simple-hearted folk, whose principal fear is poverty and "boggarts." They still gather round the fire, in corners where factories have not yet reached them, in the gray gloaming, and on dark nights in winter, to feed their imaginations with scraps of old legend, and tales of boggarts, fairies, and "feeorin," that haunt their native hills, and dells, and streams; and they look forward with joy to the ancient festivals of the year, as reliefs to their lonely round of toil. But Smallbridge had other interests for us besides those arising out of its remote surrounding nooks and population. We had known the village ever since the time when a ramble so far out from Rochdale seemed a great feat for tiny legs; and, as we passed each well-remembered spot, the flood-gates of memory were thrown open, and a whole tide of early reminiscences came flowing over the mind:--

Floating by me seems My childhood, in this childishness of mine: I care not--'tis a glimpse of "Auld lang syne."

The inhabitants of different Lancashire towns and villages have often some generic epithet attached to them, supposed to be expressive of their character; as, for the inhabitants of Oldham and Bolton, "Owdham Rough Yeds," and "Bowton Trotters;" and the people of Smallbridge are known throughout the vale by the name of "Smo'bridge Cossacks." Within the last twenty years, the inhabitants of the village have increased in number, and improved in education and manners. Before that time the place was notable for its rugged people; even in a district generally remarkable for an old-world breed of men and manners. Their misdemeanours arose more from exuberant vigour of heart and body, than from natural moral debasement. Twenty years since there was no church in Smallbridge, no police to keep its rude people in order--no effective school of any sort. The weavers and colliers had the place almost to themselves in those days. They worked hard, and ate and drank as much as their earnings would afford, especially on holidays, or "red-letter days;" and, at by-times, they clustered together in their cottages, but oftener at the road-side, or in some favourite alehouse, and solaced their fatigue with such scraps of news and politics as reached them; or by pithy, idiomatic bursts of country humour, and old songs. Sometimes these were choice snatches of the ballads of Britain, really beautiful "minstrel memories of times gone by;" such as we seldom hear now, and still seldomer hear sung with the feeling and natural taste which the country lasses of Lancashire put into them, while chanting at their work. Some of Burns's songs, and many songs commemorating the wars of England, were great favourites with them. Passing by a country alehouse, one would often hear a rude ditty, like the following, sounding loud and clear from the inside:--

You generals all, and champions bold, Who take delight i'th field; Who knock down palaces and castle walls, And never like to yield; I am an Englishman by birth, And Marlbro' is my name; In Devonshire I first drew breath, That place of noble fame.

Or this finishing couplet of another old ballad:--

To hear the drums and the trumpets sound, In the wars of High Garmanie!

I well remember that the following were among their favourites:--"O, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?" "Jockey to the Fair," "Owd Towler," "The Banks of the Dee," "Black Eyed Susan," "Highland Mary," "The Dawning of the Day," "The Garden Gate," and "The Woodpecker." There are, also, a few rough, humorous songs in the Lancashire dialect, which are very common among them. The best of these is the rudely-characteristic ballad called "Jone o' Greenfelt," and "The Songs of the Wilsons," of which the following, known by the name of "Johnny Green's Wedding," and "Description of Manchester College," by Alexander Wilson, is sufficient to show the manner and characteristics of the remainder of these popular local songs:--

Neaw lads, wheer are yo beawn so fast? Yo happun ha no yerd what's past: Aw gettun wed sin aw'r here th' last, Just three week sin come Sunday. Aw ax'd th' owd folk, an aw wur reet, So Nan an me agreed tat neet, At iv we could mak both eends meet, We'd be wed o' Ayster Monday.

That morn', as prim as pewter quarts, Aw th' wenches coom, a browt t' sweethearts; Aw fund we're loike to ha' three carts,-- 'Twur thrunk as Eccles wakes, mon; We donn'd eawr tits i' ribbins to,-- One red, one green, an tone wur blue; So hey! lads, hey! away we flew, Loike a race for th' Leger stakes, mon.

Right merrily we drove, full bat; An eh! heaw Duke an Dobbin swat; Owd Grizzle wur so lawn an fat, Fro' soide to soide hoo jow'd um: Deawn Withy Grove at last we coom, An stopt at th' Seven Stars by gum, An drunk as mich warm ale an rum, As 'nd dreawn o' th' folk i' Owdham.

When th' shot wur paid, an th' drink wur done, Up Fennel-street, to th' church for fun, We doanced loike morris-doancers dun, To th' best o' aw my knowledge: So th' job wur done, i' hauve a crack; Boh eh! what fun to get th' first smack; So neaw, my lads, 'fore we gwon back, Says aw, "We'n look at th' College."

We see'd a clock-case first, good laws! Where Deoth stonds up wi' great lung claws; His legs, an wings, an lantern jaws, They really look't quite feorink. There's snakes an watchbills, just like pikes, At Hunt an aw th' reforming tikes, An thee, an me, an Sam o' Mikes, Once took a blanketeerink.

Eh! lorjus days, booath far an woide, Theer's yards o' books at every stroide, Fro' top to bothum, eend, an soide, Sich plecks there's very few so:

Aw axt him iv they wur'n to sell, For Nan, loikes readink vastly well; Boh th' measter wur eawt, so he could naw tell, Or aw'd a bowt her Robinson Crusoe.

Theer's a trumpet speyks and maks a din, An a shute o' clooas made o' tin, For folk to go a feightink in, Just like thoose chaps o' Boney's; An theer's a table carved so queer, Wi' as mony planks as days i'th year, An crinkum-crankums here an theer, Like th' clooas-press at my gronny's.

Theer's Oliver Crumill's bombs and balls, An Frenchmen's guns they'd tean i' squalls, An swords, as lunk as me, o' th' walls, An bows an arrows too, mon: Aw didno moind his fearfo words, Nor skeletons o' men an burds; Boh aw fair hate th' seet o' greyt lung swords, Sin th' feight at Peterloo, mon.

We see'd a wooden cock likewise; Boh dang it, mon, these college boys, They tell'n a pack o' starin' loies, As sure as teaw'rt a sinner: "That cock, when it smells roast beef, 'll crow," Says he; "Boh," aw said, "teaw lies, aw know, An aw con prove it plainly so, Aw've a peawnd i' my hat for th' dinner."

Boh th' hairy mon had miss'd my thowt, An th' clog fair crackt by th' thunner-bowt, An th' woman noather lawmt nor nowt, Theaw ne'er seed loike sin t'ur born, mon. Theer's crocodiles, an things, indeed, Aw colours, mak, shap, size, an breed; An if aw moot tell toan hauve aw see'd, We moot sit an smook till morn, mon.

Then deawn Lung Millgate we did steer, To owd Mike Wilson's goods-shop theer, To bey eawr Nan a rockink cheer, An pots, an spoons, an ladles: Nan bowt a glass for lookink in A tin Dutch o'on for cookink in; Aw bowt a cheer for smookink in, And Nan axed th' price o' th' cradles.

Then th' fiddler struck up "Th' Honey Moon," An off we set for Owdam soon: We made owd Grizzle trot to th' tune, Every yard o' th' way, mon. At neet, oytch lad an bonny lass, Laws! heaw they doanc'd an drunk their glass; So toyst wur Nan an me, by th' mass, At we lee till twelve th' next day, mon.

When the horn sounded to gather the harriers, or the "foomart dogs," the weaver lads used to let go their "pickin'-pegs," roll up their aprons, and follow the chase afoot, with all the keen relish of their forefathers, returning hungry, tired, and pleased at night, to relate the adventures of the day. Sometimes they sallied from the village, in jovial companies, attended by one or more of their companions, to have a drinking-bout, and challenge "th' cocks o' th' clod" in some neighbouring hamlet. Such expeditions often led to a series of single combats, in which rude bodily strength and pluck were the principal elements of success; sometimes a general _melée_, or "Welsh main," took place; often ending in painful journeys, with broken bones, over the moors, to the "Whitworth Doctors." As far as rough sports and rough manners went, "the dule" seemed to have "thrut his club" over Smallbridge in those days. That man was lucky who could walk through the village without being assailed by something more inconvenient than mere looks of ignorant wonder, and a pelting of coarse jokes; especially if he happened to wear the appearance of a "teawn's buck." They had a kind of contempt for "teawn's folk," as an inferior race, especially in body. If town's people had more intelligence than was common in the country, these villagers often affected to consider it a knavish cleverness; and if they seemed externally clean, they looked upon it as an hypocritical concealment of the filth beneath. If they were well dressed, the old doubt arose, as to its being "o' paid for;" and if one appeared among them who had no settled home or connections, and whose demeanour they did not like, he had "done summat wrang somewheer, or elze he'd ne'er ha' bin o' that shap." In fact, it was hardly possible for people bred in a town to be as clean, strong, or honest, as those bred in the country. Town's folk had nothing wholesome about them; they were "o' offal an' boylin-pieces." When they visited Manchester, or any of the great towns about, they generally took a supply of eatables with them for the journey; "coud frog-i'-th'-hole puddin," or "fayberry cake," or "sodden moufin an' cheese," or such like homely buttery-stuff; for if they had occasion to enter any strange house in such places, to satisfy their hunger, every mouthful went down among painful speculations as to what the quadruped was when alive, and what particular reason it had for departing this life. Burns alludes affectionately to "the halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;" and oatmeal porridge, and oat-cake, enter largely into the diet of the country people in this part of Lancashire. They used to pride themselves in the name of "the Havercake Lads." A regiment raised in Lancashire during the last war bore this name. This oat-cake is baked upon a peculiar kind of stone slab, called a "back-stone;" and the cry of "Havercake back-stones" is a familiar sound in Rochdale, and the villages around it, at this day. Oatmeal porridge forms an important element of a genuine Lancashire breakfast in the country. I have often noticed the air of satisfaction with which a Lancashire housewife has filled up the great breakfast bowl with hot oatmeal porridge, and, clapping the pan on the floor, said, "Theer, lads, pultiz yo'r stomachs wi' thoose!" And the hungry, hearty youngsters have gathered hastily round their old dish, welcoming it with the joyous ejaculation of "That's th' mak'!" The thick unleavened oat-cake, called "Jannock," is scarcely ever seen in South-east Lancashire now; but it used to be highly esteemed. The common expression, "That's noan jannock," applied to anything which is not what it ought to be, commemorates the fame of this wholesome old cake of theirs. But they have no inclination to an exclusively vegetarian diet; in fact, they generally express a decided relish for "summat at's deed ov a knife;" and, like their ancient progenitors, the Saxons, they prefer heavy meals, and long draughts, to any kind of light epicurean nicety.

There are many old prejudices still cherished by the country people of south-east Lancashire,--as is their old belief in witches, witch-doctors, and "Planet-rulers;"--but they are declining, through increasing communion with the rest of the world. And then these things show only the unfavourable side of their character; for they are hospitable, open-handed, frank, and benevolent by nature. How oft have I seen them defend the downcast and the stranger; or shut up ungenerous suspicions, and open all the sluices of their native kindness by the simple expression, "He's somebody's chylt!"

"Owd Roddle" is a broken-down village fuddler in Smallbridge; perpetually racking his brains about "another gill." His appearance is more that of an Indian Fakeer than an English country gentleman. He is as "concayted as a whisket" in some things, but not in eating or drinking; for he will "seawk lamp-hoyle through a bacco-pipe if onybody'll give him a droight o' ale to wesh it deawn wi'; an' as for heytin', he'll heyt mortal thing--deeod or alive--if he con get his teeth into't." A native of Smallbridge was asked, lately, what "Roddle" did for his living, and he replied, "Whaw, he wheels coals, and trails abeawt wi' his clogs loce, an' may's a foo' of his-sel' for ale." Yet, utterly lost as Roddle is himself in person and habits, he is strongly imbued with the old prejudices against town's folk. To him, the whitest linen worn by a townsman, is only what the country folk call a "French white." A well-dressed person from Rochdale chanced one day to awaken "Roddle's" ire, who, eyeing him from head to foot, with a critical sneer, said, "Shap off whoam, as fast as tho con, an' get tat buff shurt sceawr't a bit, wilto; an' thy skin an' o; for theawr't wick wi' varmin; an' keep o' thy own clod, whol tho con turn eawt some bit like." "But," continued my informant, "aw'm a bit partial to th' offal crayter, for o' that; he's so mich gam in him, and aw like a foo i' my heart! Eh! he used to be as limber as a treawt when he're young; but neaw he's as wambly an' slamp as a barrow full o' warp-sizin'. Th' tother mornin' aw walked up to him for a bit ov a crack, as uzal, but th' owd lad had getten his toppin cut off close to his yed; an' he wacker't an' stare't like a twichelt dog; an' he gran at mo like mad. Aw're forc't dray back a bit, at th' first, he glooart so flaysome. It're very frosty, an' his een looked white and wild; an' as geawl't as a whelp. If the dule had met Roddle at th' turn of a lone that mornin' he'd a skriked hissel' eawt ov his wits, an' gwon deawn again. Eawr measther sauces me sometimes for talkin' to Roddle; but aw olez tell him at aw'st have a wort wi' th' poor owd twod when aw meet him, as what onybody says."

There is a race of hereditary sand-sellers, or "sond-knockers," in Smallbridge; a rough, mountaineer breed, who live by crushing sandstone rock, for sale in the town of Rochdale, and the villages about it. This sand is used for strewing upon the flagged house floors, when the floor is clean washed; and while it is yet damp, the sand is ground over it by the motion of a heavy "scouring-stone," to which a long, strong, wooden handle is firmly fixed, by being fastened to an iron claw, which grasps the stone, and is embedded into it by molten lead. The motion of the "scouring-stone" works the flags into smoothness, and leaves an ornamental whiteness on the floor when it gets dry; it breeds dust, however, and much needless labour. The people who knock this sand and sell it, have been known over the country side for many years by the name of "Th' Kitters;" and the common local proverb, "We're o' of a litter, like Kitter pigs," is used in Smallbridge, as an expression of friendship or of kinship. As regular as Saturday morning came, the sand-carts used to come into Rochdale, heavily laden; and I remember that they were often drawn by horses which, like the steed of the crazy gentleman of Spain, were "many-cornered;" and, often, afflicted by some of the more serious ills which horse-flesh is heir to. They have better horses now, I believe, and they are better used. The train of attendants which usually accompanied these sand-carts into the town was of a curious description. Hardy, bull-necked, brown-faced drivers, generally dressed in strong fustian, which, if heavily plated with patches in particular quarters, was still mostly whole, but almost always well mauled, and soiled with the blended stains of sand, and spilt ale, and bacon fat, with clumsily-stiched rips visible here and there: the whole being a kind of tapestried chronicle of the wearer's way of living, his work, his fights, fuddles, and feasts. Then they were often bare-headed, with their breeches ties flowing loose at the knees, and the shirt neck wide open, displaying a broad, hairy, weather-beaten chest; and the jovial-faced, Dutch-built women, too, in blue lin aprons, blue woollen bedgowns, and clinkered shoon; and with round, wooden, peck and half-peck measures tucked under their arms, ready for "hawpoths" and "pennoths." As the cart went slowly along, the women went from house to house, on each side of the road, and, laying one hand upon the door cheek, looked in with the old familiar question, "Dun yo want ony sond this mornin'?" "Ay; yo may lev a hawputh. Put it i' this can." When they came to an old customer and acquaintance, sometimes a short conversation would follow, in a strain such as this: "Well, an heaw are yo, owd craythur?" "Whaw, aw'm noan as aw should be by a deeol. Aw can heyt nought, mon, an' aw connut tay my wynt." "Aw dunnot wonder at tat; yo'n so mich reech abeawt here. If yo'rn up at th' Smo'bridge, yo'dd'n be fit to heyt yirth-bobs an' scaplins, welly. Mon, th' wynt's clen up theer, an' there's plenty on't, an' wi can help irsels to't when we like'n. Wi'n yo come up o' seein' us?" "Eh, never name it! Aw's ne'er get eawt o' this hole till aw'm carried eawt th' feet formost!" "Come, wi'n ha' noan o' that mak o' talk! Aw'd as lief as a keaw-price at yo'dd'n come. Yo'n be welcome to th' best wi han, an wi'n may yo comfortable beside; an' bring yo deawn again i'th cart. But ir Jem's gwon forrud wi' th' sond. Let's see; did'n yo gi' mo th' hawp'ny?... Oh, ay! It'll be reet! Neaw tay care o' yorsel', and keep yo'r heart eawt o' yo'r clogs!" When the cart came to a rut or a rise in the road, all hands were summoned to the push, except one who tugged and thumped at the horse, and another who seized the spokes of the wheel, and, with set teeth and strained limbs, lent his aid to the "party of progress" in that way. Sometimes a sturdy skulker would follow the cart, to help to push, and to serve out sand; but more for a share of the fun, and the pile of boiled brisket and cheese an' moufin, stowed away in the cart-box at starting, to be washed down with "bally-droights" of cold fourpenny at some favourite "co'in-shop" on the road.

The old custom of distinguishing persons by Christian names alone, prevails generally in Smallbridge, as in all country parts of Lancashire, more or less. It sometimes happens, in small country villages like this, that there are people almost unknown, even among their own neighbours, by their surnames. Roby gives an instance of this kind in his "Traditions of Lancashire," where he mentions a woman, then living in the village of Whitworth, for whom it would be useless to inquire there by her proper name; but anybody in the village could have instantly directed you to "Susy o' Yem's o' Fairoff's, at th' top o' th' Rake," by which name she was intimately known. Individuals are often met whose surnames have almost dropt into oblivion by disuse, and who have been principally distinguished through life by the name of their residence, or some epithet descriptive of a remarkable personal peculiarity, or some notable incident in their lives. Such names as the following, which will be recognised in their locality, are constantly met, and the list of them might be extended to any desirable degree:--"Tum o' Charles o' Billy's," or "Red Tum," "Bridfuut," "Corker," "Owd Fourpenny," "Tum o' Meawlo's," "Rantipow," and "Ab o' Pinder's," who fought a battle in the middle of the river Roch, at a great bull-bait in Rochdale, more than thirty years ago; "Bull Robin," "Jone o' Muzden's," "Owd Moreover," and "Bonny Meawth." This last reminds me of the report of a young villager, near Smallbridge, respecting the size of the people's mouths in a neighbouring district. "Thi'n th' bigg'st meawths i' yon country," said he, "at ever I seed clapt under a lip! Aw hove one on 'em his yure up, to see if his meawth went o' reawnd; but he knockt mo into th' slutch." Many of these quaint names rise in my memory as I write: "Owd Dragon," "Paul o' Bill's," "Plunge," "Ben o' Robin's o' Bob's o' th' Bird-stuffers, o' Buersil Yed," "Collop," "Tolloll," "Pratty Strider," "Lither Dick," and "Reawnt Legs,"--

Reawnt Legs he wur a cunnin' owd twod, He made a mule draw a four-horse lwod.

And then there was "Johnny Baa Lamb," a noted character in Rochdale twelve years ago. He was low in stature, rather stout, and very knock-knee'd; and his face was one paradise of never-fading ale-blossoms. Johnny's life was spent in helping about the slaughter-houses, and roaming from alehouse to alehouse, where, between his comical appearance, his drunken humour, his imitations of the tones of sheep, lambs, and other animals, and his old song,--

The mon and the mare, Flew up in the air, An' I think I see 'em yet, yet, yet;--

the chorus of which he assisted by clattering a poker on the hearth, he was a general favourite, and kept himself afloat in ale--the staple of his ambition--by being the butt of every tap-room, where his memory remains embarmed. There was "Barfuut Sam," a carter, who never would wear any foot-gear; "Ab o' Slender's," "Broth," "Steeom," "Scutcher," "Peawch," and "Dick-in-a-Minnit." Most of these were as well known as the church clock. And then there was "Daunt o' Peggy's," "Brunner," "Shin 'em," "Ayli o' Joe's o' Bet's o' Owd Bullfuut's," and "Fidler Bill," who is mentioned in the Lancashire song, "Hopper hop't eawt, an' Limper limp't in,"--

Then aw went to th' Peel's Arms to taste of their ale; They sup'n it so fast it never gwos stale! An' when aw'd set deawn, an' getten a gill, Who should come in boh Fidler Bill.

He rambles abeawt through boroughs an' teawns, A' sellin' folk up as boh ow'n a few peawnds;

and then there was "Jone o' Isaac's," the mower; "Peyswad," and "Bedflock," who sowed blend-spice in his garden for parsley seed; and "Owd Tet, i' Crook," an amiable and aged country woman, who lived in a remote corner of the moors, above Smallbridge, and whose intended husband dying when she was very young, she took it deeply to heart. On being pressed to accept the hand of a neighbour, who knew her excellent qualities, she at last consented, assuring him, however, that her heart was gone, and all that she could promise him was that she could "spin an' be gradely;" which saying has become a local proverb. In the forest of Rosendale, I have met with a few names of more curious structure than even any of the previous ones, such as "Eb o' Peg's o' Puddin' Jane's," "Bet o' Owd Harry's o' Nathan's at th' Change," "Enoch o' Jem's o' Rutchot's up at th' Nook," "Harry o' Mon John's," "Ormerod o' Jem's o' Bob's," and "Henry o' Ann's o' Harry's o' Milley's o' Ruchots o' John's o' Dick's, through th' ginnel, an' up th' steps, an' o'er Joseph's o' John's o' Steen's," which rather extraordinary cognomen was given to me by a gentleman, living near Newchurch, as authentic, and well known in a neighbouring dale. In a village near Bolton, there was, a few years since, a letter-carrier who had so long been known by a nickname, that he had almost forgotten his proper name. By an uncommon chance, however, he once received a letter directed to himself, but not remembering the owner, or anybody of that name, he carried the letter in his pocket for several days, till he happened to meet with a shrewd old villager, whom his neighbours looked upon as "larn't up," and able to explain everything--from ale, bull-dogs, and politics, to the geography of the moon and the mysteries of theology. The postman showed his letter to this Delphic villager, inquiring whether he knew anybody of that name. The old man looked an instant, then, giving the other a thump, he said, "Thea foo', it's thisel'!" I have heard of many an instance, in different parts of Lancashire, where some generic "John Smith," after being sought for in vain for a while, has been at last discovered concealed under some such guise as "Iron Jack," "Plunge," "Nukkin," or "Bumper." I remember an old religious student, in Rochdale, who used to take considerable pains in drilling poor lads into a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. The early part of the Bible was his favourite theme; and he interlarded his conversation with it to such a degree, that he won for himself the distinguished title of "Th' Five Books o' Moses."

In Collier's tale of "Tummus and Meary," he illustrates the personal nomenclature of these parts, in his own time, by the following passage, which, though it may appear strange in the eyes of people dwelling in the great cities of the south of England, yet does not exaggerate the custom at present prevailing in the remoter parts of the county of Lancaster:--

_Meary._ True, Tummus; no marvel at o' wur so flayed; it wur so fearfo dark.

_Tummus._ Heawe'er, aw resolv't mayth best on't, an up speek aw.--"Woooas tat?" A lad's voyce answer't in a cryin' din, "Eh, law; dunnah tay meh." "Naw," said aw, "aw'll na tay tho, belady! Whooaslad art to?" "Whau," said he, "aw'm Jone o' Lall's o' Simmy's, o'Mariom's o' Dick's o' Nathan's, o' Lall's, o' Simmy's i'th Hooms: an' aw'm gooin' whoam." "Odd," thinks aw t' mysel', "theaw's a dree-er name ti'n me." An' here, Meary, aw couldn't boh think what lung names some on us han; for thine and mine are meeterly; boh this lad's wur so mich dree-er, 'at aw thowt it dockt mine tone hawve.

_Meary._ Preo, na; tell meh ha these lung names leet'n.

_Tummus._ Um--m; lemme see. Aw conno tell tho greadly; boh aw think it's to tell folk by.

_Meary._ Well, an' hea did'n he go on with him?

_Tummus._ Then (as aw thowt he talkt so awkertly) aw'd ash him, for th' wonst, what uncuths he yerd sturrin'. "Aw yer noan," said he, "but 'at Jack o' Ned's towd mo, 'at Sam o' Jack's o' Yed's Marler has wed Mall o' Nan's o' Sal's o' Peg's, 'at gos abeawt o' beggin' churn milk, with a pitcher, with a lid on." Then aw asht him wheer Jack o' Ned's wooant. Says he, "He's 'prentice weh Isaac o' Tim's o' Nick's o'th Hough-lone, an' he'd bin at Jammy's o' George's o' Peter's i'th Dingles, for hawve a peawnd o' traycle, to seaws'n a beest-puddin' weh; an' his feyther an' moother wooan at Rossenda; boh his gronny's alive, an' wooans weh his noant Margery, eh Grinfilt, at pleck wheer his noan moother coom fro'." "Good lad," says aw, "boh heaw far's tis _Littlebrough_ off, for aw aim't see it to-neet iv he con hit." Says t' lad, "It's abeawt a mile; an' yo mun keep straight forrud o' yor lift hont, an yoan happen do." So a-this'n we parted; boh aw mawkint, an' lost my gate again, snap.

A curious instance of the prevalence of nicknames in this district occurred, a few years since, about a mile from Smallbridge. A country lass had got married out of a certain fold in that part, and going down to Rochdale soon after, a female acquaintance said to her, "Whau, Sally, thea's getten wed, hasn't to?" "Yigh," said Sally, "aw have." "Well, an' what's te felly code?" replied the other. "Whau," said Sally, "some folk co's him 'Jone o' Nancy's lad, at th' Pleawm Heawse;' but his gradely name's 'Clog Bant.'" We sometimes hear of a son who bears the same christian name as his father, as "Jamie o' James's," and "Sol ov Owd Sol's o' th' Hout Broo;" and I have often heard a witless nursery rhyme, which runs,--

Owd Tum an' yung Tum, An' Owd Tum's son; Yung Tum'll be a Tum When Owd Tum's done;

but the poor people of Lancashire sometimes have a superstitious fear of giving the son the same christian name as the father.

The ancient rural festival of "Rushbearing," in the month of August, used to make a great stir in Smallbridge; but the observance of it seems to decline, or, at least, assumes a soberer form. A great number of local proverbs, and quaint sayings, are continually being thrown up by the population there, which, in spite of their rude garb, show, like nuggets of mental gold, what undeveloped riches lie hidden in the human mind, even in Smallbridge. The people are wonderfully apt at the discernment and at the delineation of character. It is very common for them to utter graphic sentences like the following:--"He's one o' thoose at'll lend onybody a shillin', iv they'n give him fourteen-pence to stick to." One of them said, on receiving a present of game from his son in Yorkshire, "It isn't oft at th' kittlin' brings th' owd cat a meawse, but it has done this time." There are two or three out of a whole troop of anecdotes, told of the natives of this quarter, which have the air of nature about them sufficiently to indicate what some of the characteristics of these villagers were in past years. Two young men were slowly taking their road, late one night, out at the town end, after the fair, when one of them lingering behind the other, his comrade shouted to him to "Come on!" "Stop an' rosin," said the loiterer, "aw hannut foughten yet!" "Well," replied the other, with cool indifference, "Get foughten, an' let's go whoam?" In the Rev. W. Gaskell's lectures on the Lancashire dialect, he says, "The following dialogue is reported to have taken place between two individuals on meeting:--'Han yo bin to Bowton?' 'Yigh.' 'Han yo foughten?' 'Yigh.' 'Han yo lickt'n?' 'Yigh; an' aw browten a bit'n him whoam i' my pocket!'" "Owd Bun" was a collier, and a comical country blade, dwelling near Smallbridge. He was illiterate, and rough as a hedgehog. Bun had often heard of cucumbers, but had never tasted one. Out of curiosity he bought a large one, curved like a scimitar; and, reckless of all culinary guidance, he cut it into slices lengthwise, and then fried the cold green slabs, all together, in bacon fat. He ate his fill of them, too; for nothing which mortal stomach would hold came amiss to Bun. When he had finished, and wiped the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, "By th' mon, fine folk'll heyt aught! Aw'd sanur ha' had a potito!" They tell a tale, too, of the difficulties of a poor factory lass who had been newly married; which is not without its hints. Her husband told her to boil him some eggs, and to "boyle 'em soft." He went out awhile, and on his return, they were boiling, but not ready. He waited long, and then shouted, "Are thoose eggs noan ready yet?" "Naw," said she, "they are nut; for, sitho, aw've boyled 'em aboon an heawur, an' they're no softer yet." Now he did not care much for this; but when he saw her take the child's nightcap off its head to boil his dumpling in, he declared that "he couldn't ston it."

Leaving Smallbridge, we rattled out at the end of the village, past the Red Lion, and up to the top of the slope, where, after a run of about two hundred yards, we descended into the hollow where the sign of the old "Green Gate" stands. In the season of the year, people passing that way in a morning will often see the door-way crowded with hunting dogs, and a rout of sturdy rabble, waiting to follow the chase, afoot, through the neighbouring hills. Rising again immediately, we crossed another knoll, and down again we came to the foot of the brow, where four roads meet, close by the "Green Mon Inn," opposite to the deserted hamlet of Wuerdale, which perches, with distressed look, upon a little ridge near the roadside, like an old beggar craving charity. On we went, enjoying the romantic variety of the scene, as the green ups and downs of the valley opened out to view, with its scattered farms and mills, all clipt in by the hills, which began to cluster near.

About half a mile further on, where the road begins to slant suddenly towards Featherstall, Stubley Hall stands, not more than twenty yards from the roadside. A much older hall than the present one must have stood here prior to the 13th century, for in 1322, and 1323, mention is made of Nicholas and John de Stubley (His. Whalley). It subsequently came into the possession of the Holt family, of Grislehurst and Castleton; a branch of the Holts, of Sale, Ashton, Cheshire. Some of this family fought in the Scottish wars, and also, in favour of the royal cause, at Edgehill, Newbury, Marston Moor, &c., and were named in Charles's projected order of the Royal Oak. There was a Judge Holt, of the Holts of Sale; and a James Holt, whose mother was co-heiress to Sir James de Sutton; he was killed on Flodden Field. Mary, the daughter of James Holt, the last of the family who resided at Castleton, in this parish, married Samuel, brother of the famous Humphrey Cheetham. The Castleton estate came into Humphrey's hands in 1744. The manor of Spotland was granted by Henry VIII. to Thomas Holt, who was knighted in Scotland by Edward, Earl of Hertford, in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of that king. The Holts were the principal landowners in the parish of Rochdale at the close of the sixteenth century. John Holt held the manor of Spotland, with its appurtenances; also fourscore messuages, three mills, one thousand acres of inclosed land, three hundred acres of meadow, one thousand acres of pasture, and forty acres of woods, in Hundersfield, Spotland, and Butterworth; besides a claim to hold of his majesty, as of his duchy of Lancaster, one third of the manor of Rochdale. The arms of the Holts are described as "Argent on a band engrailed sable, three fleur-de-lys of the first. Crest, a spear head proper. Motto, 'Ut sanem vulnera.'" The present hall at Stubley was built by Robert Holt, about the year 1528. Dr. Whittaker notices this house, which is of considerable size, forming three sides of a square. It is now inhabited by several families; and much of the rich old carved oak, and other relics of its former importance, have been removed from the interior.

From the top of the slope near Stubley, we now saw the spire of Litteborough church, and the village itself, prettily situated at the head of the vale, and close to the foot of the hills which divide Lancashire and Yorkshire. On the top of Blackstone, and about half a mile to the south of "Joe Faulkner's,"--the well-known old sheltering spot for travellers over that bleak region,--we could now more distinctly see the streak of green which marks the line of the Roman road till it disappears from the summit of the Edge.

Featherstall is a little hamlet of comfortable cottages at the bottom of the brow in the high road near Stubley Hall, warmed by the "Rising Sun," and another, an old-fashioned public-house, apparently as old as the present Stubley Hall. The inhabitants are principally employed at the mills and collieries in the neighbourhood. The open space in the centre of the village is generally strewn with scattered hay, and the lights from the public-houses gleam forth into the watering troughs in front, as the traveller goes through at night. A rough old road leads out of the centre of the place, northward, over Calder Moor and the hills, towards Todmorden. From Featherstall, the approach to Litteborough is lined with mills, meadows, and tenter-fields, on the north side; and on the south, two or three green fields divide the highway from the railway, and a few yards on the other side of the railway the line of the Rochdale canal runs parallel with both. And thus these three roads run nearly close together past Litteborough, and all through the vale of Todmorden, up to Sowerby Bridge, a distance of twelve miles; and, for a considerable part of the way, the river forms a fourth companion to the three roads, the four together filling the entire bottom of the valley in some places; and, in addition to that, may be seen, in other parts, the old pack-horse roads leading down from the moorland steeps into the hollow. Carts, boats, railway trains, and sometimes pack-horses, seem to comment upon one another as they pass and re-pass, and form a continual and palpable lecture on modes of transit, such as is not often met with in such distinct shape. Littleborough consists, principally, of one irregular street, winding over a slight elevation, and down to its centre near the railway station, at the water-side, and thence across the bridge, up towards Blackstone Edge. It is a substantial, healthy-looking village, prettily situated in a romantic spot. There are many poor working people in the village, but there is hardly anything like dirt or squalor to be seen there, except, perhaps, a little of that migratory kind which is unavoidable in all great thoroughfares, and which remains here for a night, on its way, at a roadside receptacle which I noticed at the western end of the village, where I saw on a little board certain ominous hieroglyphics about "Loggins for travlurs." The lands in the valley round Littleborough have the appearance of fine meadow and pasture; and, taken with the still better cultivated grounds, and woods and gardens, about the mansions of the opulent people of the neighbourhood, the whole looks beautifully verdant, compared with the bleak hills which overlook the vale. The old Royal Oak Inn, in the middle of the village, is pointed out as a house which John Collier used to frequent, when he visited the neighbourhood, and where he fixed the scene of Tummus's misadventure in the inn, where he so unadvisedly "Eet like a Yorsharmon, and clear't th' stoo," after he had been to the justice with his dog, "Nip," and where the encounter took place between "Mezzilt Face" and "Wythen Kibbo:"--

Aw went in, an fund at two fat throddy folk wooant theer; an theyd'n some o'th warst fratchingst company at e'er eh saigh; for they'rn warrying, banning, and co'in one another "leawsy eawls," as thick as leet, Heawe'er, aw poo'd a cricket, an keawr't meh deawn i'th nook, o' side o'th hob. Aw'd no soyner done so, boh a feaw, seawer-lookt felley, with a wythen kibbo he had in his hont, slapt a sort ov a wither, mezzilt-face't mon, sich a thwang o'th skawp, at he varry reecht again with it, an deawn he coom o'th harstone, an his heeod i'th esshole. His scrunt wig feel off, an ahontle o' whot corks feel into't, an brunt an frizzlt it so, at when he awst don it, an unlucky carron gen it a poo, an it slipt o'er his sow, an it lee like a howmbark on his shilders. Aw glendurt like a stickt tup, for fear ov a dust mysel', an crope fur into th' chimbley. Oytch body thowt at mezzil-face would mey a flittin on't, an dee in a crack; so some on um cried eawt, "a doctor, a doctor," whol others made'n th' londlort go saddle th' tit to fotch one. While this wur eh doin', some on um had leet ov a kin ov a doctor at wooant a bit off, an shew'd him th' mon o'th harstone. He laid howd on his arm--to feel his pulse, a geawse--an poo'd as if he'd sin deeoth poo'in' at th' tother arm, an wur resolv't o'er-poo him. After lookin' dawkinly-wise a bit, he geet fro his whirly booans, an said to um aw, "Whol his heart bhyet and his blood sarkilates there's hopes, boh whon that stops, it's whoo-up with him i'faith." Mezzil-face hearin summot o' "whoo-up," started to his feet, flote noan, boh gran like a foomart-dog, an seet at t' black, swarffy tyke weh bwoth neaves, an wawtud him o'er into th' galker, full o' new drink, wortchin'. He begun o' pawsin' an peylin him into't so, at aw wur blendud together, snap. 'Sflesh, Meary; theaw'd ha' weet teh, to sin heaw th' gobbin wur awtert, when at tey pood'n him eawt; an what a hobthurst he look't weh aw that berm abeawt him. He kept dryin' his een, boh he moot as weel ha' sowt um in his hinder-end, till th' londlady had made an heawer's labber on um at th' pump. When he coom in again, he glooart awvishly at mezzil-face, an mezzil-face glendurt as wrythenly at him again; boh noather warrit, nor thrap. So they seet um deawn, an then th' londlady coom in, an would mey um't pay for th' lumber at tey'd done hur. "Mey drink's war be a creawn," said hoo, "beside, there's two tumblers, three quiftin pots, an four pipes masht, an a whol papper o' bacco shed." This made um t' glendur at tone tother again; boh black tyke's passion wur coolt at th' pump, an th' wythen kibbo had quite'nt tother, so at teh camm'd little or noan--boh agreed t' pay, aw meeon; then seet'n um deawn, an wur friends again in a snift.

This house used to be a great resort on Saturday nights, and fair days, and holidays, and it was often crammed with the villagers and their neighbours from the surrounding hill-sides; and no small addition from Rochdale and Todmorden. The windows were generally thrown open at such times; and, standing at some distance from the place, one might perhaps be able, in some degree, to sort the roar of wassailry going on inside. But if he wished to know what were the component parts of the wild medley of melodies, all gushing out from the house in one tremendous discord, he would have to draw under the windows, where he might hear:--

Our hounds they were staunch, and our horses were good As ever broke cover, or dashed in a wood; Tally-ho! hark forward, huzza; tally-ho!

Whilst, in another corner of the same room, a knot of strong-lunged roysterers joined, at the top of their voices, in the following chorus, beating time to it with fists and feet, and anything else which was heavy and handy:--

"Then heigho, heigho! Sing heigho," cried he; "Does my wife's first husband remember me?" Fal de ral, de ral, de ral, de rido!

In another room he would probably hear "Boyne Water" trolled out in a loud voice:--

The horse were the first that ventured o'er; The foot soon followed after: But brave Duke Schomberg was no more, At the crossing o' Boyne water.

Whilst another musical tippler, in an opposite corner, sang, for his own special amusement, the following quaint fragment:--

Owd shoon an' stockin's! An' slippers at's made o' red leather!

In another quarter you might hear the fiddle playing the animated strains of the "Liverpool Hornpipe," or "The Devil rove his Shurt," while a lot of hearty youngsters, in wooden clogs, battered the hearthstone to the tune. In a large room above, the lights flared in the wind, as the lads and lasses flitted to and fro in the "Haymaker," "Sir Roger de Coverley," or "The Triumph;" or threaded through a reel, and set till the whole house shook; whilst from other parts of the place you would be sure to hear, louder than all else, the clatter of pots, and hunting-cries; the thundering hurly-burly of drunken anger, or the crash of furniture, mingling with the boisterous tones of drunken fun. Whoever entered this house at such a time, in the hope of finding a quiet corner, where he could be still, and look round upon the curious mixture of quaint, rough character, would very likely find that he had planted himself in the retreat chosen by a drunken, maudlin fellow, who, with one eye closed, sat uttering, by fits, noisy salutations of affection to the pitcher of ale before him; or, with one leg over the other, his arms folded, and his head veering lazily with drunken langour, first to one side, and then to the other, poured forth a stream of unconnected jargon, in this style:--"Nea then; yollo chops! What's to do wi' thee? Arto findin' things eawt? Whether wilto have a pipe o' bacco or a bat o' th' ribs? Aw've summat i'th inside o' my box; but it looks like a brunt ratton, bi Guy! Help thysel', an' poo up, whol aw hearken tho thi catechism.... Con te tell me what natur belungs to?--that's the poynt! Come, oppen eawt! Aw'm ready for tho.... An' if thea's nought to say, turn thi yed; aw dunnut like to be stare't at wi' a bigger foo nor mysel'.... Sup; an' gi' me houd!... There's a lot o' nice, level lads i' this cote, isn't there?... Aw'll tell tho what, owd dog; th' world swarms wi' foos, donn'd i' o' maks o' clooas; an' aw deawt it olez will do; for, as fast as th' owd uns dee'n off, there's fresh uns comes. An, by th' mass, th' latter lot dunnut mend thoose at's gwon; for o' at te're brawsen wi' wit. It'd mend it a bit iv oytch body'd wortch for their livin', an' do as they should'n do. Ay; thea may look as fause as to likes; but thae'rt one o'th rook; an' thae'll dee in a bit, as sure as thae'rt livin', owd craytur. Thae'rt to white abeawt th' ear-roots to carry a gray toppin whoam, aw deawt. Gray yure's heavy, mon; it brings 'em o' to th' floor. But thir't to leet for heavy wark, my lad.... Behave thysel'; an' fill thi bally when tho's a choance, for thea looks clemmed. Arto leet gi'n? 'Cose, i' tho art, thae'd betthur awter, or elze thea'll be lyin' o' thi back between two bworts, wi' thi meawth full o' sond; afore th' hawve o' thi time's up.... Sitho at yon bletherin', keaw-lipped slotch, wi' th' quart in his hond! He's a breet-lookin' brid, isn't he? Aw dar say thae thinks thysel' bwoth hon'somer an' fauser nor him. Thae may think so, but--aw know. Thae'rt no betthur nor porritch--i'tho're look't up; for o' at to's sich a pratty waiscut on. What breed arto? There's summat i' that. But, it meeons nought; yo're o' alike at th' bothom! There's ir Jammy; he's as big a wastril as ever stare't up a lone. He ax't me to lend him ov er lads, yesterday. 'Lend te a lad o' mine,' aw said, 'naw, bi' th' heart! Aw wouldn't lend te a dog to catch a ratton wi'!... Hello! my ale's done!

'Then he doffed his shoon, An he look't i'th o'n.'

Aw'll go toaurd ir Mally, aw think. Hey, Blossom! Beauty! Beawncer! Bluebell! For shame o' thysel', Bluebell! By, dogs; by! Yo-ho! Come back, yo thieves! Come back; aw tell yo!" And so on, for hours together.

Littleborough is the last village the traveller leaves on the Lancashire side of the "Edge;" and the old high road from Manchester to Leeds passes over the top of these moorland hills, gently ascending all the way from Littleborough, by a circuitous route, to the summit--nearly three miles. A substantial hostelrie stands upon the brow of the hill, called "The White House," and sometimes "Joe Faulkner's," from the name of an eccentric landlord who kept the house in the old coaching time. This house can be seen from the valleys on the Lancashire side for many miles. It was a celebrated baiting-place for the great stream of travellers which went over these hills, before the railway drew it through the vale of Todmorden. The division stone of the counties of York and Lancaster stands about half a mile beyond this old inn. Littleborough itself is prettily situated in the hollow of the valley, at the foot of this wild range of mountains, and at the entrance of the Todmorden valley. It is surrounded by scenery which is often highly picturesque. Dark moorlands, lofty and lonesome; woody cloughs; and green valleys, full of busy life; with picturesque lakes, and little streams which tumble from the hills. The village has many advantages of situation, both for pleasure and manufacture. Stone and coal, and good water, are abundant all around it; and it is fast thriving by the increase of woollen and cotton manufacture. It is still a great thoroughfare for Lancashire and Yorkshire; and a favourite resort for botanists, geologists, sportsmen, and, not unfrequently, invalids. Northward from the village, there are many romantic cloughs, but, perhaps, the finest of these is the one called "Long Clough," at the head of which is a remarkably fine spring, called "Blue Pots Spring." The artificial lake of "Hollingworth" is about half a mile from the village, on the south side; and there is a beautiful walk leading up to its bank, through the shady clough called "Cleggswood." This lake, when full, is three miles round. It supplies the Rochdale canal, and is well stocked with fish. Its elevation places it far above the bustle of the valley below, where the highways and byeways, the iron-ways and water-ways, interweaving thickly about the scene, are alive with the traffic of the district. The valley is throng with the river, the railway, the canal, and excellent high roads; and a hardy and industrious population, which finds abundant employment at the woollen and cotton mills, in the coal mines and stone delphs, or on the dairy and sheep farms of this border region of South Lancashire. The shelvy banks of "Hollingworth" consist of irregular tiers and slopes of pasture, meadow, and moor lands. The latter are, in some directions, abrupt, lofty, and vast, especially on the eastern side, where the sterile mass of Blackstone Edge shuts out the view; whilst a wild brotherhood of heathery hills, belonging to the same range, wind about the scene in a semicircle, which stretches far away, out of sight, in the north-west. But the landscape upon the immediate borders of the lake is of a rural and serene character, though touched here and there with moorland sterility; and there is hardly a thing in sight to remind a spectator that he is surrounded by the most populous manufacturing district in the world. But the distant rumble of train after train, thundering through the neighbouring valley, and the railway whistle, rising up clear over the green hill north of the water, are sufficient to dispel any reverie which the sight of the lake and its surrounding scenery may lead to. On holidays, in summer time, the green country around the margin of this water is animated by companies of visitors from the hill sides, and the villages and towns of the neighbouring valleys. A little steamer plies upon it; and boats may be hired at the Fisherman's Inn, and other places around the banks. The scattered farm-houses of the vicinity, and the two or three country inns on the borders of the lake, are merry with pleasure parties. In winter, the landscape about "Hollingworth" is wild and lonesome; and the water is sometimes so completely frozen over that a horse and light vehicle may be driven across it, from bank to bank, a mile's distance. It is a favourite resort of skaters, from the surrounding districts; though the ice is often dangerously uneven in some places, by reason of strong springs, and other causes. Many accidents have happened through skating upon insecure parts in the ice of this water. Going home late one night in the depth of winter, to my residence by the side of this lake, I found the midnight scene dimly illumined in the distance by a gleam of lights upon the lake; and the sound of pick-axes breaking up the ice, fell with a startling significance upon the ear. Our dog, "Captain," did not come out to meet me, when I whistled, as usual; and I hurried, by a short cut over the fields and through the wood, towards the spot where the lights were visible. There I found a company of farmers and weavers, standing upon the bank, with one or two of the wealthy employers from the village of Littleborough, who had drags in their hands, and were giving directions to a number of workmen who were breaking a channel for the passage of a boat to a spot where the ice had broken in with the weight of three young men belonging to the neighbourhood. This melancholy midnight gathering were working by lantern-light, to recover the bodies from the water. I remained upon the spot until two of the corpses were brought to the bank, and removed in a cart to the farm-house where I resided, previous to being conveyed to their homes in the distant town, later on in the morning, and while it was yet dark. I shall never forget the appearance of those fresh-looking youths, as they lay stretched side by side, in their skating gear, upon a table, in the long passage which led up to my bed-chamber.

The margin of the lake is adorned with patches of wood in some places; and the hills stand around the scene in picturesque disorder. At certain seasons of the year, flocks of wild fowl may be seen resting upon its waters. There are other lakes farther up in the hills; but the position and beauty of Hollingworth make it a favourite with visitors to the district.

When westling winds and slaughtering guns Bring autumn's pleasant weather,

the Littleborough inns are throng with sportsmen, equipped for the grouse shooting; for which sport the moors of the neighbourhood are famous. Littleborough has a modern look from the railway station, near to which the new church stands, on a slight elevation, about the centre of the place, and upon the site of the old one. Yet, though the village has a modern appearance, everything known of its history shows that it is a settlement of considerable antiquity; perhaps, as early as the time of Agricola, the Roman.

The old chapel at Littleborough, which was a primitive building in appearance, was licensed for mass, by the Abbot of Whalley, A.D. 1476. It remained in its original architectural state until it became dangerously ruinous in some parts, and was taken down about thirty years ago, to make way for the present church. The _Gentleman's Magazine_, for 1844, p. 182, contains an interesting description of the new church.

In the immediate vicinity of Littleborough, there are several interesting old houses, now standing upon sites where families of importance in past times settled very early. Some of these families have become extinct in the male line; the property of others has changed hands, like Scholefield Hall, Stubley Hall, Lightowlers, and Windy Bank. Few of these old families have held together and flourished, through the mutations of time, like the family of Newall, of Town House, near Littleborough, respecting which I find the following passage in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, June, 1844, p. 593, which serves to elucidate the character and position of a large portion of the ancient landlords of the parish of Rochdale:--

The family of Newall is one of those ancient families who have for centuries resided on their parental estate, but in the retirement of respectable life holding the rank of yeomanry, which, in former times, and particularly in the age when the Newalls first settled in Lancashire, formed no unimportant portion of society--sufficiently elevated beyond the humbler classes to preserve a tolerable degree of influence and authority amongst them; while they were sheltered in their retirement from those political storms which distracted the higher circles of the community, and which led to the ruin of many of the best families of the kingdom, and to the confiscation of their estates.

Burke's _Visitation of Seats and Arms_ contains a long account of the Newalls, of Town House, Hare Hill, and Wellington Lodge, Littleborough, an influential family in this neighbourhood during several centuries past; and still owners and occupiers of their old estates, as well as extensive woollen manufacturers.

The following arms, illustrative of the connections of the Newall family, are placed, with others, in the window of Littleborough chapel:--

KYRKESHAGH, of Town House: Or, on a chief per pale gules and sable three bezants.

LITHOLRES, of Litholres: Vert, a lion rampant, or semé of calthraps sable.

NEWALL, of Town House: Quarterly, first and fourth, Per pale gules and azure, three covered cups within an orle or: second, Kyrshagh: third, Healey, Gules, four lozenges engrailed in bend ermine: fourth, Butterworth, Argent, a lion couchant azure, between four ducal coronets gules.

BUCKLEY, of Howarth Parva: a chevron between three bulls' heads caboshed argent; quartering Butterworth. (The Chadwicks of Healey quarter Buckley of Buckley. Goll. Arm.)

HOLT, of Stubley: Argent on a bend engrailed sable three fleurs-de-lis of the field. (Also quartered by the Chadwicks. Coll. Arm.)

BELFIELD, of Cleggswood: Ermine, on a chief qu. a label of five points ar.

Ten other shields contain the arms of the ancient families of the district, as Bamford of Shore, Ingham of Cleggswood, Halliwell of Pike House, &c., and those used by the bishop of the diocese, the clergy connected with the parish, and some of the gentry of the neighbourhood.

As we left Littleborough, I began, once more, to speculate upon the claims set up for it as having been a Roman station; but my thoughts had no firmer footing than the probabilities put forth by Dr. Whittaker, and some other writers, who have, perhaps, followed him. Yet, the fact that the silver arm of a small Roman statue of Victory, with an inscription thereon, was dug up in the neighbourhood some time ago, together with the direction of the Roman road as marked in the late ordnance map, and the visible remains of a small, triangular-shaped entrenchment, on each side of the road, on the summit of Blackstone Edge, seem to support the probabilities which gave rise to the opinion, and may yet enable the antiquarians of Lancashire to give us something more certain about the matter than I can pretend to.

Passing under the railway arch near the church, and leaving the woody glen of Cleggswood on the right hand, we began to ascend the hills by the winding road which crosses the canal, and leads through a little hamlet called "Th' Durn," consisting of an old substantial house or two by the roadside, and a compact body of plain cottages, with a foundry in the middle. "Th' Durn" is situated on one of the shelves of land which the high road crosses in the ascent of Blackstone Edge; and overlooks the vale in the direction of Todmorden. It is shaded on the south by a steep hill, clothed with fir, and stunted oaks. Over that hill-top, on the summit of a wild eminence, above the din and travel of mankind, stand three remarkable old folds, called "Th' Whittaker," "Th' Turner," and "Th' Sheep Bonk," like eagles' nests, overlooking, on the east, the heathery solitudes lying between there and Blackstone Edge, the silent domain of moor fowl and black-faced sheep; seldom trodden by human feet, except those of a wandering gamekeeper, or a few sportsmen, in August. Looking forth from this natural observatory, about where "Th' Whittaker" stands, the view to westward takes in an extensive landscape. The vale of the Roch is under the eye in that direction, with its pretty sinuosities, its receding dells, and indescribable varieties of undulation; nearly surrounded by hills, of different height and aspect. Distance lends some "enchantment to the view," as the eye wanders over the array of nature spread out below--green dells, waving patches of wood, broad, pleasant pastures; the clear lake of "Hollingworth" rippling below; old farm-houses, scattered about the knolls and cloughs, by the side of brooklets that shine silverly in the distance; the blue smoke curling up distinctly from each little hamlet and village; mills, collieries, tenter-fields, and manifold evidences of the native industry and manufacturing vigour of the district. In these valleys, all nature seems to yield tribute to the energy of the inhabitants, and rural life and manufacture work into each other's hands with advantage. Standing on this spot, with these things spread out before me, I have been struck with the belief, that this unfavourable region for agriculture would not have been so well cultivated even as it is now, but for the manufacturing system. Far west, the eye rests upon the town of Rochdale, with its clusters of chimneys, and hovering canopy of smoke; the small square tower of its old church, and the steeples of St. Stephen's and St. James's, with the town-clad ridges of Wardleworth and Castleton, clearly seen, if the day be fine. On a still Sunday afternoon, in summer time, I have sat upon the hill-top at "Whittaker," listening to the distant sound of Rochdale bells, that notable peal of eight, the music of which I shall never forget; and which I would back for a trifle against any bells in England for sweetness. And, at such a time, as evening came on, when "lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea," I have almost fancied that I could hear the Sunday chime of Rochdale Old Church, "My soul, praise the Lord," come floating up the vale, in the twilight, with a wonderful charm of peace and solemnity in the sound. Immediately above "Th' Durn," the high road leading up to Blackstone Edge rises again as we pass by the old public-house called "Th' Wet Rake," or "Weet Rake." This house stands at the foot of a steep path leading to "Windy Bank," an old stone hall, once inhabited by an ancient family of the neighbourhood. Windy Bank stands upon the edge of a rocky eminence, rising almost perpendicularly from the road-side by which we had to go. There used to be a carter in Rochdale, known by the name of "Old Woggy," who upset his cart in the craggy road called "Windy Bonk Steele." He returned to his master in the town with the tidings. "Woggy" always stammered in his speech, but in this case he was worse than usual; and his looks told more than his tongue. His master watched in vain for "Woggy's" painful delivery, in the usual way; but tired at last, he said, "Sing it, mon!" when "Wog" immediately sang out, with a fluent voice,--

Aw've wauted wi' th' cart at th' Wyndy Bonk Steele, An' aw've broken th' tone wheel.

As we wound round the foot of the rock on the top of which "Windy Bank" stands, we found the road rutty and uneven, being covered with the perishable sandstone from the hill, broken up and ploughed into slushy gutters, by stone-waggons from the quarries, thereabouts. Pike House, the seat of the old local family of Halliwell--one of whom endowed the Free School at Littleborough--stands near the north side of the road here; and, at a short distance behind, there is an interesting house, formerly of some importance, with a quaint fold attached, called "Lightowlers." Driving on close by the edge of the deep clough called "Sladen Hollow," a hundred yards more brought us to the "Moor Cock Inn," formerly a much more lively place than now, when this mountain road was the great thoroughfare between Lancashire and Yorkshire. The "Moor Cock" was the last house but one on the Lancashire side of Blackstone Edge. The house has a rude, wholesome look still, but is little frequented. Few folk go up that road now, except stone-getters, sand-knockers, shepherds, sportsmen, and a few curious wanderers. We agreed to leave the drag at the "Moor Cock," and walk up Blackstone Edge on foot. "Gray Bobby" was pleased with the prospect of a feed and a rest; for it is tough work upon these hill-sides. He seemed to look round with a thoughtful eye, and pricked his ears to the tread of the brisk young mountaineer--albeit he had a lame leg and a crutch--who came forth to lose his traces and lead him to the stable. As "Bobby" looked at the stable, I could almost imagine him saying to himself, "There's no place like home;" it looked so rough. In the house we found a few hardy-looking men; brown-faced, broad-shouldered moor farmers or shepherds, apparently, who did a little weaving. Their sagacious dogs lounged about the floor. Such men, in such places, generally receive strangers as if they were "fain to see aught at's wick." They happened to have a liberal newspaper among them, and free trade was the topic of their talk; as it was almost everywhere at that time. Their conversation showed, by its sensible earnestness, that there were men, even up there, who knew who paid for the great protection delusion. I have often been amused by the blunt, shrewd discourse of country people in the manufacturing districts, respecting the difference in the condition and feelings of the people in the reigns of "George o' owd George's," and his brother, "Bill o' George's," and the condition of the people now, in the reign of the "little woman at coom a-seein' us latly." In previous reigns, the tone of their loyalty might have been summed up in what "Jone o' Greenfelt" says of his wife, "Margit:"--

Hoo's naut ogen th' king, But hoo likes a fair thing, An' hoo says hoo con tell when hoo's hurt.

I have heard them talk of kings, and statesmen, "wi' kindling fury i' their breasts;" and, in their "brews" and clubs, which meet for the spread of information, they discuss the merits of political men and measures, and "ferlie at the folk in Lunnon," in a shrewd, trenchant style, which would astonish some members of the collective wisdom of the nation, could they but conveniently overhear it. The people of Lancashire, generally, are industrious collectors of political information, from such sources as they can command. They possess great integrity of judgment, and independence of character, and cannot be long blinded to the difference between wise statesmen and political knaves. They are an honest and a decent people, and would be governed by such. They evince some sparks of perception of what is naturally due to themselves, as well as to their masters; and they only know how to be loyal to others who are loyal to themselves.

When the lame ostler had attended to his charge, he came into the house and sat down with the rest. Somehow, the conversation glided in the direction of Robert Burns, and we were exchanging quotations from his poems and songs, when one of us came to a halt in reciting a passage. To our surprise, the young limper who had rubbed down "Grey Bobby," took up the broken thread, and finished the lines correctly, with good discretion, and evident relish. I fancied that we were having it all to ourselves; but the kind-hearted poet who "mourned the daisy's fate," had been at the "Moor Cock" before us, and touched a respondent chord in the heart of our ostler. I forget who it is that says, "It is the heart which makes the life;" but it is true, and it is the heart which sings in Robert Burns, and the heart will stir to the sound all the world over. How many political essays, and lectures, and election struggles, would it take to produce the humanising effect which the song, "A man's a man for a' that," has awakened? It would sound well in the British houses of parliament, sung in chorus, occasionally, between the speeches.

After resting ourselves about three-quarters of an hour in the Moor Cock, we started up the hill-side, to a point of the road a little past the toll-bar and the old oil-mill in the hollow, at the right hand. Here we struck across the moor, now wading through the heather, now leaping over ruts and holes, where blocks of stone had been got out; then squashing through a patch of mossy swamp, and sinking into the wet turf at every step, till we reached the moss-covered pavement, which the ordnance surveyors have called a "Roman road." It is entirely out of any way of travel. A clearly-defined and regular line of road of about forty feet wide, and which we traced and walked upon up to the summit of the Edge, and down the Yorkshire side, a distance of nearly two miles from our starting place upon the track. We could distinguish it clearly more than a mile beyond the place we stopped at, to a point where it crossed the road at Ripponden, and over the moor beyond, in a north-westerly direction, preserving the same general features as it exhibited in those parts where it was naked to the eye. Here and there, we met with a hole in the road, where the stones of the pavement had been taken out and carried away. While we were resting on a bank at this old road-side, one of the keepers of the moor came up with his dogs, and begged that we would be careful not to use any lights whilst upon the moor, for fear of setting fire to the heath, which was inflammably-dry. I took occasion to ask him what was the name of the path we were upon. He said he did not know, but he had always heard it called "Th' Roman Road." At a commanding point, where this old pavement reaches the edge of "Blackstone," from the Lancashire side, the rocky borders of the road rise equally and abruptly, in two slight elevations, opposite each other, upon which we found certain weather-worn blocks of stone, half buried in the growth of the moor. There was a similarity in the general appearance, and a certain kind of order visible, in the arrangement of these remains, which looked not unlikely to be the relics of some heavy ancient masonry, once standing upon these elevations; and at the spot which is marked, is the line of the "Roman Road," in the ordnance maps, as an "Entrenchment."

The view along the summits of the vast moors, from any of the higher parts of this mountain barrier between the two counties of Lancaster and York, looks primevally-wild and grand, towards the north and south; where dark masses of solitude stretch away as far as the eye can see. In every other direction, the landscape takes in some cultivated land upon the hill-sides, and the bustle and beauty of many a green vale, lying low down among these sombre mountains; with many a picturesque and cultivated dingle, and green ravine, higher up in the hills, in spots where farm-houses have stood for centuries; sometimes with quaint groups of cottages gathered round them, and clumps of trees spreading about, shading the currents of moorland rivulets, as they leap down from the hills. In the valleys, the river winding through green meadows; mansions and mills, villages and churches, and scattered cottages, whose little windows wink cheerfully through their screen of leaves--

Old farms remote, and far apart, with intervening space Of black'ning rock, and barren down, and pasture's pleasant face: The white and winding road, that crept through village, glade, and glen, And o'er the dreary moorlands, far beyond the homes of men.

Standing upon these proud and rugged desolations, which look down upon the changeful life of man in the valleys at their feet, with such an air of strength and serenity, whilst the toiling swarms of Lancashire and Yorkshire are scattered over the landscape beyond, in populous hives--the contrast is peculiarly strong; and I have wondered whether these old hills, which have seen the painted Celt tracking his prey through the woods and marshes below, and worshipping "in the eye of light," among wild fanes of rock, upon these mountain wildernesses--which have heard the tread of the legions of old Rome; and have watched the brave Saxon, swinging his axe among the forest trees, and, with patient labour, slowly making these valleys into green and homely pasturages; and which still behold the iron horses of modern days, rushing along the valley every hour, snorting fire and steam: I have wondered whether the hills, at whose feet so many generations of brave men have come and gone, like swathes of grass, might not yet again see these native valleys of mine as desolate and stirless as themselves. These moorland hills, the bleak companions of mist, and cloud, and tempest, rise up one after another upon the scene, till they grow dim on the distant edge of the sky. Lying upon my back, among the heather, I looked along the surface of the moors; and I shall long remember the peculiar loneliness of the landscape seen in that way. Nothing was in sight but a wild infinity of moors and mountain tops, succeeding each other, like heaving waves, of varied form. Not a sign of life was visible over all the scene, except immediately around us, where, now and then, a black-faced sheep lifted its head above the heather, and stared, with a mingled expression of wonder and fear, at the new intruders upon its solitary pasturage. Occasionally, a predatory bird might be seen upon these hills, flitting across the lone expanse--an highwayman of the skies; and, here and there, the moorfowl sprang up from the cover, in whirring flight, and with that wild clucking cry, which, in the stillness of the scene, came upon the ears with a clearness that made the solitude more evident to the senses. A rude shepherd's hut, too, could be seen sheltering near a cluster of crags upon the hill-side, and hardly distinguishable from the heathery mounds, which lay scattered over the surface of the moor. But, in the distance, all seemed one wilderness of untrodden sterility--as silent as death. The sky was cloudless whilst we wandered upon those barren heights: and the blue dome looked down, grandly-calm, upon the landscape, which was covered with a glorious sunshine.

No stir of air was there; Not so much life as on a summer day Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest

Heaven and earth were two magnificent stillnesses, which appeared to gaze serenely and steadily at each other, with the calm dignity and perfect understanding of ancient friends, whose affinities can never be unsettled, except by the fiat of Him who first established them. Looking horizontally along the moors, in this manner, nothing was visible of those picturesque creases, which lie deep between these mountain ridges, and teem with the industrious multitudes of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

These hills form part of a continuous range, running across the island, in different elevations, and familiarly known as the "Backbone of England." Looking southward and south-east, in the direction of the rocky waste called "Stanedge,"--which is crossed by the high road from Manchester to Huddersfield--and "Buckstones," which, according to local tradition, was formerly an highwayman's haunt,--the whole country is one moorland wild; and the romantic hills of Saddleworth, with the dim summits of the Derbyshire mountains, bound the view. Northward, the landscape has the same general appearance. In this direction, Studley Pike lately occupied the summit of a lofty moorland, overlooking the valley between Hebden Bridge and the town of Todmorden; which is part of a district famous for its comely breed of people, and for the charms of its scenery. Studley Pike was a tall stone tower, erected to commemorate the restoration of peace, at the end of our wars with Napoleon. Singularly, it came thundering to the ground on the day of the declaration of war against Russia.

On the west, the valley of the Roch, with its towns and villages, stretches away out from this group of hills. Littleborough nestles immediately at the foot of the mountain; and the eye wanders along the vale, from hamlet to hamlet, till it reaches the towns of Rochdale, Bury, Heywood, Middleton, and the smoky canopy of Manchester in the distance. On a favourable day, many other large and more distant Lancashire towns may be seen. On the east, or Yorkshire side, looking towards Halifax, the hills appear to be endless. The valleys are smaller and more numerous, often lying in narrow gorges and woody ravines between the hills, hardly discernable from the distance. The mountain sides have a more cultivated look, and hovering halos of smoke, rising up from the mountain hollows, with, sometimes, the tops of factory chimneys peering out from the vales, show where villages like Ripponden and Sowerby are situated. On the distant edge of the horizon, a grey cloud hanging steadily beyond the green hill, called "King Cross" marks the locality of the town of Halifax. Green plots of cultivated land are creeping up the steep moors; and comfortable farm-houses, with folds of cottages, built of the stone of the district, are strewn about the lesser hills, giving life and beauty to the scene.

For native men, the moors of this neighbourhood, as well as the country seen from them, contain many objects of interest. The hills standing irregularly around; the rivers and streams; the lakes and pools below, and in the fissures of the mountains--we knew their names. The lakes, or reservoirs, about Blackstone Edge, form remarkable features in its scenery. One of these, "Blackstone Edge Reservoir," takes its name from the mountain upon whose summit it fills an extensive hollow. This lake is upwards of two miles, close by the water's edge. The scenery around it is a table-land, covered with heather, and rocks, and turfy swamps. The other two, "White Lees" and "Hollingworth," lie lower, about half way down the moors: "White Lees" in a retired little glen, about a mile north-west of the "White House," on the top of Blackstone Edge; and "Hollingworth," the largest and most picturesque of the three, is situated about two miles south-west of the same spot. Close by the side of the high road from Lancashire, over these hills into Yorkshire, this old hostelry, known as "Th' White House," is situated near the top of Blackstone Edge, looking towards Lancashire. The division-stone of the two counties stands by the road-side, and about half a mile eastward of this public-house. The northern bank of the road, upon which the division-stone stands, shuts out from view the lake called "Blackstone Edge Reservoir"--a scene which "skylark never warbles o'er." A solitary cart-road leads off the road, at the corner of the reservoir, and, crossing the moor in a north-easterly direction, goes down into a picturesque spot, called "Crag Valley," or "The Vale of Turvin," for it is known by both names. This valley winds through the heart of the moors, nearly four miles, emptying itself at Mytholmroyd, in the vale of Todmorden. Fifty years ago, "Crag Valley" was an unfrequented region, little known, and much feared. Now there are thriving clusters of population in it; and pretty homesteads, in isolated situations, about the sides of the clough. Manufacture has crept up the stream. "Turvin" is becoming a resort of ramblers from the border towns and villages of the two counties, on account of the picturesque wildness of its scenery. In some places the stream dashes through deep gorges of rock, overhung with wood; peeping through which, one might be startled by sight of a precipitous steep, shrouded with trees, and the foaming water rushing wildly below over its fantastic channel. There are several mills in the length of the valley now; and, in level holms, down in the hollow, the land is beautifully green. The vale is prettily wooded in many parts; but the barren hills overlook the whole length of Turvin. In former times, the clough was notable among the people of the surrounding districts, as a rendezvous of coiners and robbers; and the phrase "a Turvin shilling," grew out of the dexterity of these outlaws, who are said to have lurked a long time in the seclusion of this moorland glen.

Approaching Turvin by the rough road across the moor, from the top of Blackstone Edge, it leads into a deep corner of the valley, in which stands the church of "St. John's in the Wilderness," built a few years ago, for the behoof of the inhabitants of the neighbouring moors, and for a little community of factory people in this remote nook of the earth.

Upon the summit of one of the neighbouring mountains, there is a great platform of desolation, distinguished, even among this stony waste, as "The Wilderness;" and I think that whoever has visited the spot will be inclined to say that the roughest prophet that ever brooded over his visions in solitary places of the earth, could not well wish for a wilder Patmos than this moor-top. On the right hand of the public-house, near St. John's Church, several rough roads lead in different directions. The centre one goes up through a thick wood which clothes the mountain side, and on by winding routes to this "cloud-capped" wilderness. On a distant part of this bleak tract stand two remarkable Druidical remains, called "Th' Alder Stones," or the "Altar Stones,"--sombre masses of rock, upon which the Druid priests of our island performed their sacrificial rites, before the wild Celts of the district. The position and formation of these stones, which have each a sloping top, with a hollow in the middle, and a channel thence downward, seem to confirm the character attributed to them.

Returning from "St. John's in the Wilderness," towards Blackstone Edge, a quaint stone building, called "Crag Hall," occupies a shady situation upon the hill-side, at the right hand of the vale, and at the edge of the wild tract called "Erringdale Moor." This ancient hall contains many specimens of carved oak furniture, which have been preserved with the building, from the time of its old owners. A few years ago, the keeper of Erringdale moor dwelt in it, and kept the place in trim as a lodge, for the entertainment of the owners of the moor, and their sporting friends, in the grouse season.

Between the moor-side on which "Crag Hall" is situated, and the road up to the top of Blackstone Edge, a moorland stream runs along its rocky channel, in the deep gut of the hills. I remember that many years ago I wandered for hours, one summer day, up this lonely water, in company with a young friend of mine. In the course of our ramble upon the banks of the stream, little dreaming of any vestiges of human creation in that region, we came almost upon the roof of a cottage, rudely, but firmly built of stone. We descended the bank by a sloping path, leading to the door. There was no smoke, no stir nor sound, either inside or out; but, through the clean windows, we saw a pair of hand-looms, with an unfinished piece upon them. We knocked repeatedly, hoping to obtain some refreshment after our stroll; but there was no answer; and just as we were about to leave the lonely tenement, and take our way homewards--for the twilight was coming on, and we had nearly ten miles to go--we heard the sound of a pair of clogs in the inside of the cottage; and the door was opened by a tall, strong man, apparently about thirty-five years of age. His clear-complexioned face was full of frankness and simplicity. His head was large and well-formed, and covered with bristling brown hair, cut short. Yawning, and stretching his arms out, he accosted us at once--as if we were old friends, for whom he had been looking some time--with, "Well, heaw are yo, to-day?" We asked him for a drink of water. He invited us in, and set two chairs for us in a little kitchen, where the furniture was rudely-simple and sound, and everything in good order, and cleaned to its height. He brought forth pitchers full of buttermilk, plenty of thick oat-cakes, and the sweet butter for which these hills are famous; and we feasted. The cool of the evening was coming on, and there was no fire in his grate; so he fetched a great armful of dry heather from an inner room, and, cramming it into the fire-place, put a light to it. Up blazed the inflammable eilding, with a crackling sound, making the room look cheerful as himself. A few books lay upon the window-sill, which we asked leave to look at. He handed them to us, commenting on them, in a shrewd and simple way, as he did so. They were chiefly books on mathematics, a science which he began to discourse upon with considerable enthusiasm. Now, my young companion happened to have a passion for that science; and he no sooner discovered this affinity between himself and our host, than to it they went pell-mell, with books and chalk, upon the clean flags; and I was bowled out of the conversation at once. Leaving them to their problems, and circles, and triangles, I walked out upon the moor; and sitting upon a knoll above the house, wrote a little rhyme in my note-book, which some years after appeared in the corner of a Manchester newspaper. When I returned they were still at it, ding-dong, about something or another in differential calculus; and I had great difficulty in impressing upon the mind of my companion the important area lying between us and our homes. This lonely mathematician, it seemed, was a bachelor, and he got his living partly by weaving, and partly by watching the moor, for the owners; and as I looked upon him I almost envied the man his strong frame, his sound judgment, his happy unsophisticated mind, and his serene and simple way of life. He walked over the moor with us nearly two miles, without hat, conversing about his books, and the lonely manner of his life, with which he appeared to be perfectly contented. At our parting, he pressed us to come over the moors again the first opportunity, and spend a day with him at his cottage. I have hardly ever met with another man who seemed so strong and sound in body; and so frank, and sensible, and simple-hearted, as this mathematical eremite of the mountains. That enthusiastic attachment to science, which so strongly distinguishes him in my remembrance, is a common characteristic of the native working-people of Lancashire, among whom, in proportion to the population, there is an extraordinary number of well-read and practised mechanics, botanists, musicians, and mathematicians; and the booksellers in the towns of the county, know that any standard works upon these subjects, and some upon divinity, are sure to find a large and ready sale among the operative classes.

We wore the afternoon far away in rambling about the high and open part of Blackstone Edge, between the group of rocks called "Robin Hood's Bed," and the solitary inn called the "White House," upon the Yorkshire road. Wading through fern and heather, and turfy swamps; climbing rocks, and jumping over deep gutters and lodgments of peaty water, had made us so hungry and weary, that we made the best of our way to this inn, while the sun was yet up above the hills. Here, the appetite we had awakened was amply satisfied; and we refreshed, and rested ourselves a while, conversing about the country around us, and exchanging anecdotes of its remarkable local characters, and reminiscences of our past adventures in the neighbourhood. Many of these related to "Old Joe," the quaint gamekeeper, at Hollingworth, a kind of local "Leather Stocking," who has many a time rowed us about the lake in his fishing-boat.

When we came out of the inn, the sun had gone down upon the opposite side of the scene. Night's shadows were climbing the broad steeps; but the summit-lines of the hills still showed in clear relief, against the western sky, where the sunset's glory lingered. In every other direction, the skirts of the landscape were fading from view. Rochdale town, with its church tower and stacks of tall chimneys, had disappeared in the distance. The mountainous wastes stretching away on the north, south, and east, were melting into indistinct masses; and, below the hills, quiet evening's dreamy shades were falling softly down, and folding away for the night the hamleted valleys between Blackstone Edge and the boundary of the scene. Day's curtains were closing to; the watchers of night were beginning their golden vigil; and all the air seemed thick with dreams. We descended from the moor-top by a steep path, which diverges, on the right-hand side of the highway, a little below the "White House," and cuts off a mile of the distance between that point and the "Moor Cock," where we had left "Grey Bobby" and the "Whitechapel." Far down, from scattered cots and folds, little lights were beginning to glimmer. That frontlet jewel of mild evening's forehead--"the star that bids the shepherd fold"--was glowing above us, and, here and there, twinklings of golden fire were stealing out from the blue expanse. As we picked our way down the moor, the stillness of the tract around us seemed to deepen as the light declined; and there was no distinguishable sound in the neighbourhood of our path, except the silvery tricklings of indiscernable rills. From the farms below, the far-off bark of dogs and lowing of cattle came floating up, mingled with the subdued rush and rattle of railway trains, rushing along the valley. Half an hour's walk down the hill brought us back to the "Moor Cock." Limper, the ostler, got "Grey Bobby" from the stable, and put him into the harness. Out came the folk of the house, to see us off. Our frisky tit treated us to another romp; after which we drove down the road, in the gloaming, and on through Littleborough and Smallbridge, to Rochdale, by the light of the stars.

The Town of Heywood and its Neighbourhood.

Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy. --WORDSWORTH

One Saturday afternoon, about midsummer, I was invited by a friend to spend a day at his house, in the green outskirts of Heywood. The town has a monotonous, cotton-spinning look; yet, it is surrounded by a pleasant country, and has some scenery of a picturesque description in its immediate neighbourhood. Several weeks previous to this invitation had been spent by me wholly amongst the bustle of our "cotton metropolis," and, during that time, I had often thought how sweetly summer was murmuring with its "leafy lips" beyond the town, almost unseen by me except when I took a ride to a certain suburb, and wandered an hour or two in a scene upon which the season seemed to smile almost in vain, and where the unsatisfactory verdure was broken up by daub-holes and rows of half-built cottages, and the air mixed with the aroma of brick-kilns and melting lime. Sometimes, too, I stole down into the market-place, on a Saturday morning, to smell at the flowers and buy a "posy" for my button-hole. It reminded me of the time when I used to forage about my native hedges, for bunches of the wild rose and branches of white-blossomed thorn. But now, as the rosy time of the year grew towards its height, I began to hanker after those moors and noiseless glens of Lancashire, where, even yet, nature seems to have it all her own way. I longed for the quiet valleys and their murmuring waters; the rustling trees; and the cloudless summer sky seen through fringed openings in the wildwood's leafy screen. Somebody says, that "we always find better men in action than in repose;" and though there are contemplative spirits who instinctively shun the din of towns, and, turning to the tranquil seclusions of nature, read a lofty significance in its infinite forms and moods of beauty, yet, the grand battle of life lies where men are clustered. Great men can live greatly anywhere; but ordinary people must be content to snatch at any means likely to improve or relieve their lot; and it will do any care-worn citizen good to "consider the lilies of the field" a little, now and then. Country folk come to town to relieve the monotony of their lives; and town's folk go to the country for refreshment and repose. To each the change may be beneficial--at least I thought so; and, as light as leaf upon tree, I hailed my journey; for none of Robin Hood's men ever went to the greenwood with more pleasure than I.

It was nearly three when we passed the Old Church, on our way to the station. The college lads, in their quaint blue suits, and flat woollen caps, were frolicking about the quadrangle of that ancient edifice which helps to keep alive the name of Humphrey Chetham. The omnibuses were rushing by, with full loads. I said "full loads;" but there are omnibuses running out of Manchester, which I never knew to be so full that they would not "just hold another." But on we went, talking about anything which was uppermost; and in a few minutes we were seated in the train, and darting over the tops of that miserable jungle known by the name of "Angel Meadow." The railway runs close by a little hopeful oasis in this moral desert--the "Ragged School," at the end of Ashley Lane; and, from the carriage window, we could see "Charter-street"--that notable den of Manchester outcasts. These two significant neighbours--"Charter-street" and the "Ragged School"--comment eloquently upon one another. Here, all is mental and moral malaria, and the revelry of the place sounds like a forlorn cry for help. There the same human elements are trained, by a little timely culture, towards honour and usefulness. Any man, with an unsophisticated mind, looking upon the two, might be allowed to say, "Why not do enough of _this_ to cure _that_?" On the brow of Red Bank, the tower and gables of St. Chad's Church overlook the swarming hive which fills the valley of the Irk; and which presents a fine field for those who desire to spread the gospel among the heathen, and enfranchise the slave. And if it be true that the poor are "the riches of the church of Christ," there is an inheritance there worth looking after by any church which claims the title. Up rose a grove of tall chimneys from the streets lining the banks of the little slutchy stream, that creeps through the hollow, slow and slab, towards its confluence with the Irwell; where it washes the base of the rocks upon which, five hundred years ago, stood the "Baron's Hall," or manor house of the old lords of Manchester. On the same spot, soon after the erection of the Collegiate Church, that quaint quadrangular edifice was built as a residence for the warden and fellows, which afterwards became, in the turns of fortune, a mansion of the Earls of Derby, a garrison, a prison, an hospital, and a college. By the time we had taken a few reluctant sniffs of the curiously-compounded air of that melancholy waste, we began to ascend the incline, and lost sight of the Irk, with its factories, dyehouses, brick-fields, tan-pits, and gas-works; and the unhappy mixture of stench, squalor, smoke, hard work, ignorance, and sin, on its borders; and, after a short stoppage at Miles Platting, our eyes were wandering over the summer fields. Nature was drest in her richest robes; and every green thing looked lush with beauty. As we looked abroad on this wide array, it was delightful to see the sprouting honeysuckle, and the peace-breathing palm; and there, too, creeping about the hedges, was that old acquaintance of life's morning, the bramble, which will be putting forth "its small white rose" about the time that country folk begin to house their hay; and when village lads in Lancashire are gathering gear to decorate their rush-hearts with. Clustering primroses were there; and the celandine, with burnished leaves of gold; and wild violets, prancked with gay colours; with troops of other wild flowers, some full in view, others dimly seen as we swept on;--a world of floral beauty thickly embroidering the green mantle of the landscape, though beyond the range of discriminating vision; but clear to the eye of imagination, which assured us that these stars of the earth were making their old haunts beautiful again. The buttercup was in the fields, holding its pale gold chalice up to catch the evening dews. Here and there grew a tuft of slender-stemmed lilies, graceful and chaste; and then a sweep of blue-bells, tinging the hedge-sides and the moist slopes under the trees with their azure hue--as blue as a patch of sky--and swinging the incense from their pendent petals into the sauntering summer wind. Then came the tall foxglove, and bushes of the golden-blossomed furze, covered with gleaming spears, upon the banks of the line. Oh, refulgent summer! Time of blossoms and honeydews; and flowers of every colour! Thy lush fields are rich with clover and herb-grass! Thy daylights glow with glory; thy twilights are full of dreamy sights and sounds; and the sweetest odours of the year perfume the air, when

The butterfly flits from the flowering tree; And the cowslip and blue-bell are bent by the bee!

The throstle sang loud and clear in the trees and dells near the line, as we rolled along; and the blithe "layrock" made the air tremble, between heaven and the green meadows, with his thrilling lyric. That tall, white flower, which country folk call "posset," spread out its curdy top among the elegant summer grasses, quietly swaying to and fro with the wind. And then the daisy was there! There is no flower so well becomes the hand of a child as the daisy does! That little "crimson-tippet" companion of the lark, immortalised in the poet's loving wail! Tiny jewel of the fields of England; favourite of the child and of the bard! Daisies lay like snow upon the green landscape; and the hedges were white with the scented blossom of the thorn. To eyes a little tired of the city's hives of brick--

Where stoop the sons of care, O'er plains of mischief, till their souls turn grey--

it was refreshing to peer about over the beautiful summer expanse, towards the blue hills rising on the edge of the horizon, solemn and serene.

My own impression of the natural charms of this part of Lancashire is, perhaps, a little warmer and more accepting than that of an unbiassed stranger would be; for the wheels are beautiful which roll me towards the country where I first pulled the wild flowers and listened to the lark. In this district, there are none of those rich depths of soil which, with little labour and tilth, burst forth in full crops of grain. But the land is mostly clothed with pastoral verdure; and the farming is almost entirely of the dairy kind. It is a country of green hills and vales, and clusters of dusky mills, surrounded by industrial life; and, except on the high moorlands, there is very little land now, even of the old mosses and morasses, which is not inclosed, and in progress of cultivation. The scenery has features of beauty peculiar to itself. It consists of a succession of ever-varying undulations, full of sequestered cloughs, and dingles, and shady corners; threaded by many a little meandering stream, which looks up at the skies from its green hollow; and which

Changes oft its varied lapse, And ever as it winds, enchantment follows, And new beauties rise.

Travellers from the midland and southern counties of England often notice the scarcity of trees in this quarter. The native woods were chiefly oak, ash, birch, beech, and yew--very useful timbers. But when the time came that Lancashire had to strip some of its old customs and ornaments, for the fulfilment of its manufacturing destiny, every useful thing upon the soil was seized, and applied to the purposes of the new time. The land itself began to be wanted for other ends than to grow trees upon. And then, when old landlords happened to be pressed for money, the timber of their estates--daily becoming more valuable for manufacturing necessities--sometimes presented the readiest way of raising it. Their lands often followed in the same track. And now, the landscape looks bald. Trees are scanty and small, except at a few such places as Hopwood Hall, and Chadderton Hall; and a few isolated clumps, like that which crests the top of "Tandle Hills." In that part of this district which lies between "Boggart Ho' Clough," near the village of Blackley, on the west, the town of Middleton, on the east, and the Manchester and Leeds railway line, on the south, there is a wide platform of level land, called "Th' White Moss." It stands above the surrounding country; and is quite removed from any of the great highways of the neighbourhood, which, nevertheless, wind near to the borders of this secluded moss, with their restless streams of business. In former days, this tract has been a densely-wooded wild; and, even within these twenty years last past, it was one great marsh, in whose peaty swamps the relics of ancient woods lay buried. Since that time, nearly two hundred acres of the moss have been brought into cultivation; and it is said that this part of it now produces as fine crops as any land in the neighbourhood. In turning up the bog, enormous roots and branches of trees, principally oaks, are often met with. Very fine oaks, beeches, firs, and sometimes yew trees, of a size very seldom met with in this part of Lancashire in these days, have frequently been found embedded in this morass, at a depth of five or six feet. Samuel Bamford, in his description of the "White Moss," says: "The stems and huge branches of trees were often laid bare by the diggers, in cultivating it. Nearly all the trees have been found lying from west to east, or from west to south. They consist of oaks, beeches, alders, and one or two fine yews. The roots of many of them are matted and gnarled, presenting interesting subjects for reflection on the state of this region in unrecorded ages. Some of these trees are in part charred when found. One large oak, lying on the north-west side of the moss, has been traced to fifteen yards in length, and is twelve feet round." This moss was one of those lonely places to which the people of these districts found it necessary to retreat, in order to hold their political meetings in safety, during that eventful period of Lancashire history which fell between the years 1815 and 1821. It was a time of great suffering and danger in these parts. The working people were often driven into riot and disorder by the desperation of extreme distress; which disorder was often increased by the discreditable espionage and ruthless severities employed to crush political discussion among the populace. Of the gallant band of reformers which led the van of the popular struggle, many a humble and previously-unnoted pioneer of liberty has left an heroic mark upon the history of that time. Some of these are still living; others have been many a year laid in their graves; but their memories will long be cherished among a people who know how to esteem men who sincerely love freedom, and are able to do and to suffer for it, in a brave spirit.

In this active arena of industrialism, there are many places of interest: old halls and churches; quaint relics of ancient hamlets, hidden by the overgrowth of modern factory villages; immense mills, and costly mansions, often belonging to men who were poor lads a few years ago, wearing wooden clogs, and carrying woollen pieces home from the loom, upon their shoulders. As we cross the valley beyond the station, the little old parish church of Middleton stands in sight, on the top of a green eminence, about a mile north from the line. In the interior of this old fane still hang, against the southern wall, the standard and armour of Sir Richard Assheton, which he dedicated to St. Leonard of Middleton, on returning from Flodden Field, where he greatly distinguished himself; taking prisoner Sir John Foreman, serjeant-porter to James the Sixth of Scotland, and Alexander Barrett, high sheriff of Aberdeen; and capturing the sword of the standard-bearer of the Scottish king. He led to the battle a brave array of Lancashire archers, the flower of his tenantry. At the western base of the hill upon which the church of St. Leonard is situated, two large cotton factories now stand, close to the spot which, even so late as the year 1845, was occupied by the picturesque old hall of the Asshetons, lords of Middleton. The new gas-works of the town fills part of the space once covered with its gardens. Middleton lies principally in the heart of a pleasant vale, with some relics of its ancient quaintness remaining, such as the antique wood-and-plaster inn, called the "Boar's Head," in the hollow, in front of the parish church. The manor of Middleton anciently belonged to the honour of Clithero, and was held by the Lacies, Earls of Lincoln. In the reign of Henry III., the heir of Robert de Middleton held a knight's fee in Middleton, of the fee of Edmund or Edward, Earl of Lincoln, who held it of the Earls of Ferrars, the king's tenant in capite. And Baines, in his history of Lancashire, further says:--

In 3 Edward II., the manor of Middleton is found in the inquisition post-mortem of Henry de Lacy, amongst the fees belonging to the manor of Tottington, held by service of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. With Henry, Earl of Lincoln, this branch of the Lacys passed away; and their possessions in this country, with his daughter and heiress, devolved upon Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster. The heirs of Robti (Robert) de Middleton possessed lands in _Midelton_, by military service, in the reign of Henry the Third, 1216-1272. At a later period, the manor was possessed by Richard Barton, Esq.; the first of this family who is recorded in connection with Middleton was living in the reign of Henry the Fourth, 1410. He died without surviving issue, and the manor passed to the heirs of his brother, John Barton, Esq., whose daughter Margaret having married Ralph Assheton, Esq., a son of Sir John Assheton, Knt., of Ashton-under-Lyne, he became Lord of Middleton in her right, in the seventeenth of Henry the Sixth, 1438, and was the same year appointed a page of honour to that king. He was knight-marshal of England, lieutenant of the Tower of London, and sheriff of Yorkshire, 1473-1474. He attended the Duke of Gloucester at the battle of Haldon, or Hutton Field, Scotland, in order to recover Berwick, and was created a knight _banneret_ on the field for his gallant services, 1483. On the succession of Richard the Third to the crown, he created Sir Ralph vice-constable of England, by letters patent, 1483.

Thus began the first connection of the town of Middleton with that powerful Lancashire family, the Asshetons, of Ashton-under-Lyne, in the person of the famous "Black Lad," respecting whom Dr. Hibbert says, in his historical work upon Ashton-under-Lyne, as follows:--

It appears that Ralph Assheton became, by his alliance with a rich heiress, the lord of a neighbouring manor, named Middleton, and soon afterwards received the honour of knighthood, being at the same time entrusted with the office of vice-chancellor, and, it is added, of lieutenant of the Tower. Invested with such authority, he committed violent excesses in this part of the kingdom. In retaining also for life the privilege of _guld riding_, he, on a certain day in the spring, made his appearance in this manner, clad in black armour (whence his name of the _Black Lad_), mounted on a charger, and attended by a numerous train of his followers, in order to levy the penalty arising from neglect of clearing the land from _carr gulds_. The interference of so powerful a knight, belonging to another lordship, could not but be regarded by the tenants of Assheton as a tyrannical intrusion of a stranger, and the name of the _Black Lad_ is at present regarded with no other sentiment than that of horror. Tradition has, indeed, still perpetuated the prayer that was fervently ejaculated for a deliverance from his tyranny:--

Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake, And for thy bitter passion, Save us from the axe of the Tower, And from Sir Ralph of Assheton.

Happily, with the death of this terrible guld-rider of Assheton, the custom was abolished, but the sum of five shillings is still reserved from the estate, for the purpose of commemorating it by an annual ceremony. Ralph Assheton, of Middleton, was an energetic adherent to the parliamentary cause during the civil wars. On the 24th September, 1642, about one hundred and fifty of his tenants, in complete arms, joined the forces of Manchester, in opposition to the royalists. He commanded the parliamentary troops at the siege of Warrington. He was engaged at the siege of Lathom House, and led the Middleton Clubmen at the siege of Bolton-le-Moors. In 1648 he was a major-general, and commanded the Lancashire soldiery of the commonwealth, on the marshalling of the parliamentary forces to oppose the Duke of Hamilton. In the same year, he took Appleby from the royalists. His eldest son, Richard, who died an infant, March 25th, 1631, was supposed to have been bewitched to death by one Utley, "who, for the crime, was tried at the assizes at Lancaster, and executed there." His son Ralph espoused the cause of Charles the Second, and was created a baronet in 1663.

As we glide out of sight of Middleton, a prominent feature of the landscape, on the opposite side of the railway, is the wood-crowned summit of "Tandle Hills." These hills overlook the sequestered dairy farms, and shady dingles of an extensive district called "Thornham;" which, though surrounded at short distances by busy manufacturing villages and towns, is a tract full of quaint farm-folds, grassy uplands and dells, interlaced with green old English lanes and hedge-rows. Before the train reaches "Blue Pits," it passes through the estates of the Hopwoods, of Hopwood; and, at some points, the chimneys and gables of Hopwood Hall peep through surrounding woods, in a retired valley, north of the line. As the train begins to slacken on its approach to the station, the old road-side village of Trub Smithy, the scene of many a humorous story, lies nestling beyond two or three fields to the south, at the foot of a slope, on the high road from Manchester to Rochdale. At "Blue Pits" station, we obeyed the noisy summons to "Change for Heywood," and were put upon the branch line which leads thitherward. The railway hence to Heywood winds through green fields all the way, and is divided from the woods of Hopwood by a long stripe of canal. As we rolled on, the moorland heights of Ashworth, Knowl, Rooley, and Lobden, rose in the back ground before us, seemingly at a short distance, and before any glimpse was seen of the town of Heywood, lying low between us and the hills. But, as we drew near, a canopy of smoky cloud hung over the valley in front; and "we knew by the smoke"--as the song says--that Heywood was near; even if we had never known it before. Heywood is one of the last places in the world where a man who judges of the surrounding country by the town itself, would think of going to ruralize. But, even in this smoky manufacturing town, which is so meagre in historic interest, there are some peculiarities connected with its rise and progress, and the aspects of its present life; and some interesting traits in the characteristics of its inhabitants. And, in its surrounding landscape, there are many picturesque scenes; especially towards the hills, where the rising grounds are cleft, here and there, by romantic glens, long, lonesome, and woody, and wandering far up into the moors, like "Simpson Clough;" and sometimes vales, green and pleasant, by the quiet water-side, like "Tyrone's Bed," and "Hooley Clough."

As the train drew up to that little station, which always looks busy when there are a dozen people in the office, the straggling ends of Heywood streets began to dawn upon us, with the peeking chimney tops of the cotton mills, which lay yet too low down to be wholly seen. Some costly mansions were visible also, belonging to wealthy men of the neighbourhood--mostly rich cotton-spinners--perched on "coignes of vantage," about the green uplands and hollows in the valley, and generally at a respectful distance from the town. Many of the cotton mills began to show themselves entirely--here and there in clusters--the older ones looking dreary, and uninviting to the eye; the new ones as smart as new bricks and long lines of glittering windows could make their dull, square forms appear. A number of brick-built cottages bristled about the summit of a slope which rose in front of us from the station, and closed from view the bulk of the town, in the valley beyond. We went up the slope, and took a quiet bye-path which leads through the fields, along the southern edge of Heywood, entering the town near the market-place. And now, let us take a glance at the history, and some of the present features of this place.

So far as the history of Heywood is known, it has not been the arena of any of those great historical transactions of England's past, which have so shaken and changed the less remote parts of the country. The present appearance of Heywood would not, perhaps, be any way delightful to the eye of anybody who had no local interest in it. Yet, a brief review of the history, and the quick growth of the place, may not be uninteresting. Heywood is the capital of the township of Heap, and stands principally upon a gentle elevation, in a wide valley, about three miles from each of the towns of Rochdale, Bury, and Middleton. The township of Heap is in the parish and manor of Bury, of which manor the Earl of Derby is lord. This manor has been the property of the Derby family ever since the accession of Henry VII., after the battle of Bosworth Field, when it was granted by the king to his father-in-law, Thomas Stanley, first Earl of Derby, who figures in Shakspere's tragedy of "Richard the Third." The previous possessors were the Pilkingtons, of Pilkington. Sir Thomas Pilkington was an active adherent of the York faction, in the wars of the Roses; and, in a manuscript of Stowe's, his name appears, with a large number of other friends of Richard, who "sware Kynge Richard shuld were ye crowne." There is a secluded hamlet of old-fashioned houses in this township, called "Heap Fold," situated on a hill about half a mile west of Heywood. This hamlet is generally admitted to be the oldest, and, probably, the only settlement in the township of Heap in the time of the Saxons, who first cleared and cultivated the land of the district. Previous to that time, it may be naturally supposed that, like many other parts of South Lancashire, this district was overrun with woods, and swamps, and thickets. Edwin Butterworth published a little pamphlet history of Heywood, from which I quote the following notes:--"The origin of the designation Heap is not at all obvious; in the earliest known mention of the place, it is termed _Hep_, which may imply a tract overgrown with hawthorn berries. The name might arise from the unevenness of the surface--_heep_ (Saxon), indicating a mass of irregularities. The denomination 'Heywood' manifestly denotes the site of a wood in a field, or a wood surrounded by fields." Farther on, in the same pamphlet, he says:--"The local family of Hep, or Heap, has been extinct a considerable time. The deed of the gift of the whole forest of Holecombe, to the monks of St. Mary Magdalen, of Bretton, in Yorkshire, by Roger de Montbegon, is witnessed, amongst others, by Robert de Hep; but without date, being of an age prior to the use of dates. Roger de Montbegon, however, died 10th Henry III., so that this transaction occurred before 1226." It may be true that what is here alluded to as the local family of Hep, or Heap, is extinct; but the name of Heap is now more prevalent among the inhabitants of Heywood and the immediately surrounding towns than anywhere else in England. With respect to the two suppositions as to the origin of the name; almost every Lancashire lad will remember that he has, at one time or another, pricked his fingers with getting "heps," the common bright red berry, which, in other parts, goes by the name of the "hip." And then there is some show of likelihood in the supposition that the name has come from the Saxon word "heep," meaning "a mass of irregularities," as Butterworth says; for the whole district is a succession of hills, and holes, and undulations, of ever-varying size and shape. Again, he says, "Heap was doubtless inhabited by at least one Saxon family, whose descendants, it is probable, quietly conformed to Norman rule. In that era, or perhaps earlier, the place was annexed to the lordship and church of Bury, of which Adam de Bury, and Edward de Buri, were possessors shortly after the conquest.[16] A family of the name of Hep, or Heap, held the hamlet from the paramount lords. In 1311, third of Edward II., Henery de Bury held one half of the manor of Bury."[17] Previous to the fifteenth century, this township must have been part of a very wild and untempting region, having, for the most part, little or no settled population, or communion with the living world beyond; and the progress of population, and cultivation of the land, up to that time, appear to have been very slow, and only in a few isolated spots; since, although there were several heys of land at that time, near to a wood, thence called "Heywood," upon the spot now occupied by a busy community of people, numbering twenty thousand at least, yet, there is no record of any dwelling upon that spot until shortly after the fifteenth century, when a few rural habitations were erected thereon. From this comparatively recent period may be reckoned the dawn of the rural village which has since expanded into the present manufacturing town of Heywood, now thriving at a greater rate than ever, under the impulse of modern industrialism. About this time, too, began the residence there of a family bearing the local name. "In 1492 occurs Robert de Heywood. In the brilliant reign of Elizabeth, Edmund Heywood, Esq., was required, by an order dated 1574, to furnish a coat of plate, a long bowe, shéffe of arrows, steel cap, and bill, for the military musters."[18] James Heywood, gentleman, was living before 1604. Peter Heywood, Esq., a zealous magistrate, the representative of this family in the reigns of James the I. and Charles the I., was a native and resident of the present Heywood Hall, which was erected during the sixteenth century. It is said that he apprehended Guido Faux, coming forth from the vault of the house of parliament, on the eve of the gunpowder treason, November 5th, 1605; he probably accompanied Sir Thomas Knevett, in his search of the cellars under the parliament house. The principal interest connected with the earliest history of the town of Heywood seems to be bound up in the history of Heywood Hall and its inhabitants, which will be noticed farther on.

[16] Testa de Neville.

[17] Harl. MSS. Codex 2,085, fo. 443.

[18] Hard. MSS., 1296. There is a pedigree of this family in Dodsworth's MSS Bodleian Lib. vol. lxxix.

The old episcopal chapel, near the market-place, dedicated to St. Luke, is a plain little building, with nothing remarkable in its appearance or its situation. It seems to have been founded at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It contains inscriptions commemorative of the Holts, of Grizlehurst, and the Starkies, of Heywood Hall. A dial-plate on the eastern exterior bears the date of 1686, with the initials of Robert Heywood, Esq., of Heywood Hall, who was governor of the Isle of Man in 1678. Besides the Heywoods, of Heywood Hall, there were several powerful local families in the olden time seated at short distances round the spot where Heywood now stands: the Heaps, of Heap; the Bamfords, of Bamford; the Marlands, of Marland; the Holts, of Grizlehurst; and the Hopwoods, of Hopwood--which last still reside upon their ancient estate.

Heywood, or "Monkey Town," as sarcastic people in other parts of Lancashire sometimes call it, is now a manufacturing place of at least twenty thousand inhabitants. It owes its rise almost entirely to the cotton manufacture; and the history of the latter incorporates the history of the former in a much greater degree than that of any other considerable town in the district. This gives it a kind of interest which certainly does not belong to any beauty the appearance of the town at present possesses. A few years before those mechanical inventions became known which ultimately made Lancashire what it is now, Heywood was a little peaceful country fold; but a few years after these inventions came into action, it began to grow into what the people of those days thought "something rich and strange," with a celerity akin to the growth of great towns in the United States of America. About two hundred years ago, a few rural cottages first arose upon this almost unpeopled spot; and at the time when the manufacture of cotton began in South Lancashire, it was still a small agricultural village, prettily situated in a picturesque scene, about the centre of the ridge of land which is now nearly covered by the present smoky town. This little nucleus clustered near the old chapel which stands in the market-place. Previous to the invention of the fly shuttle, by Kay, in the neighbouring town of Bury; and the ingenious combinations of the inventions of his contemporaries by Arkwright, the Preston barber, almost every farm-house and cottage in this part had the old-fashioned spinning-wheel and the hand-loom in them, wherewith to employ any time the inhabitants could spare from their rural occupations. At the time of Arkwright's first patent, the people of these parts little knew what a change the time's inventions were bringing upon their quiet haunts--still less of the vast influences which were to arise therefrom, combining to the accomplishment of incalculable ends; and they were, at first, slow to wean from their old, independent way of living, partly by farming and partly by manufacturing labour, which they could do in their own houses, and at their own leisure. "Manchester manufacturers are glad," says Arthur Young, in 1770 (the year of Arkwright's first patent), "when bread is dear, for then the people are forced to work." But though the supply of yarn in those days was less than the demand, and the people were not yet draughted away from their old manner of life, they were caught in the web of that inevitable destiny which will have its way, in spite of the will of man. The world's Master had new commissioners abroad for the achievement of new purposes. These wonder-working seeds of providence, patiently developing themselves in secret, were soon to burst forth in a wide harvest of change upon the field of human life. Certain men of mechanical genius arose, and their creative dreams wrought together in a mysterious way to the production of extraordinary results. John Kay, of Bury, invented the "picking-peg," or "fly-shuttle," in 1738; and his son, Robert Kay, invented the "drop-box," used in the manufacture of fabrics of various colours; and that wonderful cotton and woollen carding machine, which stretches the wire out of the ring, cuts it into lengths, staples and crooks it into teeth, pricks holes in the leather, and puts in the teeth, row after row, with extraordinary speed and precision, till the cards are finished. Thomas Highs, the humble and ingenious reed-maker, at Leigh, in 1763, originated that first remarkable improvement in spinning machinery which he called after his favourite daughter, "Jenny;" and he also introduced the "throstle," or water-frame, in 1767. This man lingered out his old age in affliction and dependence. James Hargreaves, the carpenter, of Blackburn, improved upon the original idea of the spinning jenny, and invented the crank and comb, "an engine of singular merit for facilitating the progress of carding cotton." The ignorant jealousy of the Lancashire operatives in those days drove this ingenious man to seek shelter in Nottinghamshire, where he was but ill-received, and where he ended his days in poverty. He died in a workhouse. Arkwright, the Preston barber, was more endowed by nature with the qualities requisite for worldly success than these ingenious, abstracted, and simple-minded mechanical dreamers. He was a man of great perseverance and worldly sagacity. With characteristic cunning, he appears to have wormed their secrets out of some of these humble inventors; and then, with no less industry and enterprise than ingenuity, he combined these with other kindred inventions, and wrought them into a practical operation, which, by its results, quickly awakened the world to a knowledge of their power. He became a rich man, and "Sir Richard." In 1780, the "spinning mule" was first introduced by its inventor, Samuel Crompton, a dreamy weaver, then dwelling in a dilapidated corner of an old Lancashire hall, called "Th' Hall i'th Wood," in Turton, near Bolton. This machine united the powers of the spinning jenny and the water frame. The spinning mule is now in general use in the cotton manufacture. This poor weaver gave his valuable invention to the public, without securing a patent. His remuneration, in the shape of money, was therefore left to the cold chances of charity. He was, however, at first, rewarded by a subscription of one hundred guineas; and, _twenty years afterwards_, by an additional subscription of four hundred guineas; and in 1812, parliament awarded the sum of five thousand pounds to the dreamy old weaver, in his latter days. In 1785, the first patent for the power-loom was obtained by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright, of Kent, who invented it; and, after considerable improvements, it has at last contributed another great impulse to the manufacturing power of these districts. Whilst these mechanical agencies were developing themselves, James Watt was busy with his steam power; and Brindley, in conjunction with the Duke of Bridgewater, was constructing his water-ways. They were all necessary parts of one great scheme of social alteration, the end of which is not yet. These men were the immediate sources of the manufacturing power and wealth of Lancashire. Up rose Arkwright's model mill at Cromford; and the people of South Lancashire, who were spinning and weaving in the old way, in their scattered cottages and folds, began to find themselves drawn by irresistible spells into new combinations, and new modes of living and working. Their remote haunts began to resound with the tones of clustering labour; their quiet rivers, late murmuring clear through silent vales and cloughs, began to be dotted with mills; and their little villages shot up into large manufacturing towns. From 1770 to 1788, the use of wool and linen in the spinning of yarns had almost disappeared, and cotton had become the almost universal material for employment. Hand wheels were superseded by common jennies, hand carding by carding engines, and hand picking[19] by the fly shuttle. From 1778 to 1803 was the golden age of this great trade; the introduction of mule yarns, assimilated with other yarns producing every description of goods, gave a preponderating wealth through the loom. The mule twist being rapidly produced, and the demand for goods very large, put all hands in request; and weaver's shops became yearly more numerous. The remuneration for labour was high, and the population was in a comfortable condition. The dissolution of Arkwright's patent in 1785, and the general adoption of mule spinning in 1790, concurred to give the most extraordinary impetus to the cotton manufacture. Numerous mills were erected, and filled with water frames; and jennies and mules were made and set to work with incredible rapidity.[20] Heywood had already risen up, by the previous methods of manufacture, to a place of about two thousand inhabitants, in the year 1780--that changeful crisis of its history when the manufacture of cotton by steam power first began in the township of Heap, with the erection of Makin Mill, hard by the north side of Heywood. This mill was built by the firm of Peel, Yates, and Co., of Bury--the principal of which firm was Robert Peel, Esq. (afterwards Sir Robert), and father of the memorable Sir Robert Peel, late prime minister of England, whose name is honourably connected with the abolition of the Corn Laws; a man who won the gratitude of a nation by daring to turn "traitor" to a great wrong, that he might help a great right. This mill is now the property of Edmund Peel, Esq., brother of the late Sir Robert. It stands about half a mile from Heywood, in a shady clough, and upon the banks of the river Roch, which rises in the hills on the north-east extremity of the county, and flows down through the town of Rochdale, passing through the glen called "Tyrone's Bed;" and through "Hooley Clough." The river then winds on westward, by the town of Bury, three miles off. The course of this water is now well lined with manufacturing power, nearly from its rise to its embouchure. A stranger may always find the mills of Lancashire by following the courses of its waters.

[19] The "picking rod" is a straight wooden handle, by which the hand-loom weaver used to impel his shuttle. "As straight as a pickin' rod," is a common phrase among country people in South Lancashire.

[20] "Radcliffe's Origin of Power-loom Weaving," pp. 59--66.

Before the factory system arose, when the people of this quarter did their manufacturing work at their homes--when they were not yet brought completely to depend upon manufacture for livelihood, and when their manner of life was, at least, more natural and hardy than it became afterwards--their condition was, morally and physically, very good, compared with the condition which the unrestricted factory system led to, in the first rush after wealth which it awoke; especially in the employment of young children in mills. The amount of demoralisation and physical deterioration then entailed upon the population, particularly in isolated nooks of the country, where public opinion had little controlling influence upon such mill-owners as happened to possess more avarice than humane care for their operative dependents, must have been great. It was a wild steeple-chase for wealthy stakes, in which whip and spur were used with little mercy, and few were willing to peril their chances of the plate by any considerations for the sufferings of the animal that carried them. But the condition of the factory operatives, since the introduction of the Ten Hours' Bill--and, perhaps, partly through the earnest public discussions which led to that enactment--has visibly begun to improve. Benevolent and just men, who own mills, have, of their own accord, in many honourable instances, paid a more liberal attention to the welfare of their workpeople even than the provisions of the law demanded: and those mill-owners whose only care for their operatives was bounded by a desire to wring as much work as possible out of them for as little pay as possible, were compelled to fulfil certain humane regulations, which their own sympathies would have been slow to concede. The hours of factory labour are now systematically shortened; and the operatives are not even so drunken, riotous, and ignorant, as when they were wrought from bed-time to bed-time. Books and schools, and salutary recreation, and social comfort, are more fashionable among them than they used to be--partly because they are more practicable things to them than before. The mills themselves are now healthier than formerly; factory labour is restricted to children of a reasonable age; and elementary education is now, by a wisdom worthy of extension, administered through the impulse of the law, to all children of a certain age in factories.

Heywood is altogether of too modern an origin to contain any buildings interesting to the admirer of ancient architecture. The only places in Heywood around which an antiquarian would be likely to linger, with anything like satisfaction, would be the little episcopal chapel in the market-place, founded in the seventeenth century; and Heywood Hall, which stands about half a mile from the town, and of which more anon. With these exceptions, there is probably not one building in the place two hundred years old.

The appearance of Heywood, whether seen in detail or as a whole, presents as complete, unrelieved, and condensed an epitome of the still-absorbing spirit of manufacture in the region where it originated, as can be found anywhere in Lancashire. And, in all its irregular main street consisting of more than a mile of brick-built shops and cottages--together with the little streets and alleys diverging therefrom--there does not appear even one modern building remarkable for taste, or for any other distinguishing excellence, sufficient to induce an ordinary man to halt and admire it for a minute. There is not even an edifice characterised by any singularity whatever, calculated to awaken wonder or curiosity in an ordinary beholder, except its great square, brick cotton mills, machine shops, and the like; and when the outside of one of these has been seen, the outside of the remainder is no novelty. The heights and depths principally cultivated in Heywood appear to be those of factory chimneys and coal-pits. Of course, the interiors of the mills teem with mechanical wonders and ingenuities; and the social life and characteristics of the population are full of indigenous interest. But the general exterior of the town exhibits a dull and dusky succession of manufacturing sameness. Its inns, with one or two exceptions, look like jerry-shops; and its places of worship like warehouses. A living writer has said of the place, that it looks like a great funeral on its way from Bury to Rochdale--between which towns it is situated midway. When seen from any neighbouring elevation, on a dull day, this strong figure hardly exaggerates the truth. The whole life of Heywood seems to be governed by the ring of factory bells--at least, much more than by any other bells. The very dwelling-houses look as if they, too, worked in the factories. To persons accustomed to the quaint prettiness of well-regulated English rural villages, and the more natural hue and general appearance of the people in such places, the inhabitants of Heywood would, at first sight, have somewhat of a sallow appearance, and their houses would appear to be slightly smeared with a mixture of soot, sperm oil, and cotton fluz. And, if such observers knew nothing of the real character and habits of the population, they would be slow to believe them a people remarkably fond of cleanliness and of homely comfort, as far as compatible with the nature of their employment. A close examination of these Heywood cottages would show, however, that their insides are more clean and comfortable than the first glance at their outsides might suggest; and would also reveal many other things not discreditable to the native disposition of the people who dwell in them. But the architecture and general characteristics of Heywood, as a town, evince no taste, no refinement, nor even public spirit of liberality, commensurate with its wealth and energy. The whole population seems yet too wrapt in its manufacturing dream, to care much about the general adornment of the place, or even about any very effective diffusion of those influences which tend to the improvement of the health and the culture of the nobler faculties of the people. But Heywood may yet emerge from its apprenticeship to blind toil; and, wiping the dust from its eyes, look forth towards things quite as essential as this unremitting fight for bread for the day. At present, wherever one wanders among the streets on week-days, the same manufacturing indications present themselves. It is plain that its people are nearly all employed in one way, directly or indirectly. This is suggested, not only by the number and magnitude of the mills, and the habitations of the people, but by every movement on the streets. Every vehicle that passes; every woman and child about the cottages; every lounger in the market-place tells the same story. One striking feature of week-day life in Heywood, more completely even than in many other kindred towns, is the clock-work punctuality with which the operative crowds rush from the mills, and hurry along the streets, at noon, to their dinners; sauntering back again in twos and threes, or speeding along in solitary haste, to get within the mill-doors in time for that re-awakening boom of the machinery which is seldom on the laggard side of its appointment. And it is not only in the dress and manners of this body of factory operatives--in their language and deportment, and the prevailing hue of their countenances--that the character and influence of their employment is indicated; but also in a modified variety of the same features in the remainder of the population, who are either immediately connected with these operatives, or indirectly affected by the same manufacturing influences. I have noticed, however, that factory operatives in country manufacturing towns like Heywood have a more wholesome appearance, both in dress and person, than the same class in Manchester. Whether this arises from any difference in the atmosphere, or from more healthy habits of factory operatives in the country than those induced among the same class by the temptations of a town like Manchester, I cannot say.

In the course of the year, there are two very ancient festivals kept up, each with its own quaint peculiarities, by the Heywood people; and commemorated by them with general rejoicing and cessation from labour. One of these is the "Rush-bearing," held in the month of August--an old feast which seems to have died out almost everywhere else in England, except in Lancashire. Here, in Heywood, however, as in many other towns of the county, this ancient festival is still observed, with two or three days' holiday and hilarity. The original signification of this annual "Rush-bearing," and some of the old features connected with the ceremony, such as the bearing of the rushes, with great rejoicing, to the church, and the strewing of them upon the earthen floor of the sacred fane, have long since died out. The following passage is taken from a poem called "The Village Festival," written by Elijah Ridings, a living author, of local celebrity, and is descriptive of the present characteristics of a Lancashire "Rush-bearing," as he had seen it celebrated in his native village of Newton, between Manchester and Oldham:--

When wood and barn-owls loudly shout, As if were near some rabble rout; When beech-trees drop the yellow leaf, A type of human hope and grief; When little wild flowers leave the sun, Their pretty love-tasks being done; And nature, with exhaustless charms, Lets summer die in autumn's arms: There is a merry, happy time, With which I'll grace my simple rhyme:-- The wakes--the wakes--the jocund wakes! My wand'ring memory forsakes The present busy scene of things, And soars away on fancy's wings, For olden times, with garlands crown'd, And rush-carts green on many a mound, In hamlet bearing a great name,[21] The first in astronomic fame; With buoyant youth and modest maid, Skipping along the green-sward glade, With laughing eyes and ravished sight, To share once more the old delight! Oh! now there comes--and let's partake-- Brown nuts, spice bread, and Eccles cake;[22] There's flying-boxes, whirligigs, And sundry rustic pranks and rigs; With old "Chum"[23] cracking nuts and jokes, To entertain the country folks; But more, to earn a honest penny, And get a decent living, any-- Aye, any an humble, striving way, Than do what shuns the light of day. Behold the rush-cart, and the throng Of lads and lasses pass along! Now watch the nimble morris-dancers, Those blithe, fantastic antic-prancers, Bedeck'd with gaudiest profusion Of ribbons, in a gay confusion Of brilliant colours, richest dyes, Like wings of moths and butterflies; Waving white kerchiefs here and there, And up and down, and everywhere; Springing, bounding, gaily skipping, Deftly, briskly, no one tripping; All young fellows, blithe and hearty, Thirty couples in the party; And on the footpaths may be seen Their sweethearts from each lane, and green And cottage home; all fain to see This festival of rural glee; The love-betrothed, the fond heart-plighted, And with the witching scene delighted In modest guise, and simple graces, With roses blushing on their faces; Ah! what denotes, or what bespeaks Love more than such sweet apple-cheeks? Behold the strong-limbed horses stand, The pride and boast of English land, Fitted to move in shafts or chains, With plaited, glossy tails and manes: Their proud heads each a garland wears Of quaint devices--suns and stars; And roses, ribbon-wrought, abound; _The silver plate_,[24] one hundred pound, With green oak boughs the cart is crowned, The strong, gaunt horses shake the ground. Now, see, the welcome host appears, And thirsty mouths the ale-draught cheers; Draught after draught is quickly gone-- "Come; here's a health to everyone!" Away with care and doleful thinking, The cup goes round; what hearty drinking! While many a youth the lips is smacking, And the two drivers' whips are cracking; Now, strike up music, the old tune; And louder, quicker, old bassoon; Come, bustle, lads, for one dance more, And then _cross-morris_ three times o'er. Another jug--see how it foams-- And next the brown October comes; Full five years old, the host declares, And if you doubt it, loudly swears That it's the best in any town-- Tenpenny ale, the real nut-brown. And who was he, that jovial fellow, With his strong ale so old and mellow? A huge, unwieldy man was he, Like Falstaff, fat and full of glee; With belly like a thirty-six[25] (Now, reader, your attention fix), In loose habiliments he stands, Broad-shouldered, and with brawny hands; Good humour beaming in his eye, And the old, rude simplicity; Ever alive for rough or smooth, That rare old fellow, Bill o' Booth![26]

[21] The village of _Newton_, on Newton Heath, near Manchester.

[22] A kind of spiced cake, for which the village of Eccles, near Manchester, is famous.

[23] A quaint old vendor of nuts and Eccles cakes, who used to be well known at Lancashire wakes and fairs.

[24] Much valuable silver plate is sometimes lent by the inhabitants of Lancashire villages, to adorn the front of their native rush-cart during its annual peregrinations.

[25] A thirty-six gallon barrel.

[26] He was the landlord of an old road-side inn, on Newton Heath, with a pleasant bowling-green behind it. The house is still known as "Bill o' Booth's."

The other is a famous old festival here, as well as in the neighbouring town of Bury. It is a peculiarly local one, also; for, I believe, it is not celebrated anywhere else in England except in these two towns. It begins on Mid-Lent Sunday, or "Simblin-Sunday," as the people of the district call it, from the name of a spiced cake which is prepared for this feast in great profusion, and in the making of which there is considerable expense and rivalry shown. On "Simblin-Sunday," the two towns of Bury and Heywood swarm with visitors from the surrounding country, and "simblins" of extraordinary size and value are exhibited in the shop windows. The festival is kept up during two or three days of the ensuing week. In the Rev. W. Gaskell's interesting lectures on the "Lancashire Dialect," the following passage occurs relative to this "Simblin-Cake:"--"As you are aware there is a kind of cake for which the town of Bury is famous, and which gives its name in these parts to Mid-Lent Sunday--I mean 'symnel.' Many curious and fanciful derivations have been found for this; but I feel no doubt that we must look for its true origin to the Anglo-Saxon 'simble' or 'simle,' which means a feast, or 'symblian,' to banquet. 'Simnel' was evidently some kind of the finest bread. From the chronicle of Battle Abbey, we learn that, in proof of his regard for the monks, the Conqueror granted for their daily uses thirty-six ounces of 'bread fit for the table of a king,' which is called _simenel_; and Roger de Hoveden mentions, among the provisions allowed to the Scotch King, at the Court of England, 'twelve _simenels_.' 'Banquet bread,' therefore, would seem to come very near the meaning of this word. I may just observe in passing, that the baker's boy who, in the reign of Henry VII., personated the Earl of Warwick was most likely called 'Lambert Simnel,' as a sort of nickname derived from his trade."[27]

The amusements, or what may be called the leisure-habits, of the factory population in Lancashire manufacturing towns are much alike. Some are sufficiently jaded when their day's work is done, or are too apathetic by nature to engage heartily in anything requiring further exertion of body or mind. There are many, however, who, when they leave the factory in the evening, go with a kind of renovating glee to the reading of such books as opportunity brings within their reach, or to the systematic prosecution of some chosen study, such as music, botany, mechanics, or mathematics, which are favourite sciences among the working people of Lancashire. And even among the humblest there are often shrewd and well-read, if not extensively-read, politicians, chiefly of the Cobbett school. But the greatest number occupy their leisure with rude physical sports, or those coarser indulgences which, in a place like Heywood, are more easily got at than books and schools, especially by that part of the people who have been brought up in toilful ignorance of these elements. The tap-room is the most convenient school and meeting-place for these; and the tap-rooms are numerous, and well attended. There, factory lads congregate nightly, clubbing their pence for cheap ale, and whiling the night hours away in coarse ribaldry and dominoes, or in vigorous contention in the art of single step-dancing, upon the ale-house hearth-stone. This single step-dancing is a favourite exercise with them; and their wooden clogs are often very neatly made for the purpose, lacing closely up to above the ankle, and ornamented with a multitude of bright brass lace holes. The quick, well-timed clatter upon the tap-room flags generally tells the whereabouts of such dancing haunts to a stranger as he goes along the streets; and, if he peeps into one of them, he may sometimes see a knot of factory lads clustered about the tap-room door inside, encouraging some favourite caperer with such exclamations as, "Deawn wi' thi fuut, Robin! Crack thi rags, owd dog!" The chief out-door sports of the working class are foot-racing, and jumping matches; and sometimes foot-ball and cricket. Wrestling, dog-fighting, and cock-fighting are not uncommon; but they are more peculiar to the hardier population outside the towns. Now and then, a rough "up-and-down" fight takes place, at an ale-house door, or brought off, more systematically, in a nook of the fields. This rude and ancient manner of personal combat is graphically described by Samuel Bamford, in his well-known "Passages in the Life of a Radical." The moors north of Heywood afford great sport in the grouse season. Some of the local gentry keep harriers; and now and then, a "foomart-hunt" takes place, with the long-eared dogs, whose mingled music, when heard from the hill-sides, sounds like a chime of bells in the distant valley. The entire population, though engaged in manufacture, evinces a hearty love of the fields and field sports, and a strong tincture of the rough simplicity, and idiomatic quaintness of their forefathers, or "fore-elders," as they often call them. In an old fold near Heywood, there lived a man a few years since, who was well known thereabouts as a fighter. The lads of the hamlet were proud of him as a local champion. Sometimes he used to call at a neighbouring ale-house, to get a gill, and have a "bout" with anybody worth the trouble, for our hero had a sort of chivalric dislike to spending his time on "wastrils" unworthy of his prowess. When he chanced to be seen advancing from the distance, the folk in the house used to say, "Hellho! so-and-so's coming; teen th' dur!" whereupon the landlord would reply, "Nawe, nawe! lev it oppen, or else he'll punce it in! But yo'n no casion to be fleyed, for he's as harmless as a chylt to aught at's wayker nor his-sel!" He is said to have been a man of few words, except when roused to anger; when he uttered terrible oaths, with great vehemence. The people of his neighbourhood say that he once swore so heavily when in a passion, that a plane-tree, growing at the front of his cottage, withered away from that hour. Most Lancashire villages contain men of this stamp--men of rude, strong frame and temper, whose habits, manners, and even language, smack a little of the days of Robin Hood. Yet, it is not uncommon to find them students of botany and music, and fond of little children. Jane Clough, a curious local character, died at a great age, near Heywood, about a year and a half ago. Jane was a notable country botanist, and she had many other characteristics which made her remarkable. She was born upon Bagslate Heath, a moorland tract, up in the hills, to the north-east of Heywood. I well remember that primitive country amazon, who, when I was a lad, was such an old-world figure upon the streets of Rochdale and Heywood. Everybody knew Jane Clough. She was very tall, and of most masculine face and build of body; with a clear, healthy complexion. She was generally drest in a strong, old-fashioned blue woollen bedgown, and thick petticoats of the same stuff. She wore a plain but very clean linen cap upon her head, loosely covered with a silk kerchief; and her foot-gear was heavy clouted shoon, or wooden clogs, suitable to her rough country walks, her great strength, and masculine habits. Botany was always a ruling passion with old moorland Jane. She was the queen of all flower-growers in humble life upon her native ground; especially in the cultivation of the polyanthus, auricula, tulip, and "ley," or carnation. Jane was well known at all the flower shows of the neighbourhood, where she was often a successful exhibitor; and though she was known as a woman of somewhat scrupulous moral character--and there are many anecdotes illustrative of this--yet she was almost equally well known at foot-races and dog-battles, or any other kind of battles; for which she not unfrequently held the stakes.

[27] The following note is attached to this passage, in Mr. Gaskell's lectures:--"That noble master of language, Walter Savage Landor, who has done me the honour to refer to my lecture in the _Examiner_, says of this word 'symble,' a feast, it is very likely 'symbslum,' which means the same, in form of pic-nic; and adds, 'In Tuscany a fine cake is called _semolino_. When I was a boy at Rugby, I remember a man from Banbury who sold _simnels_, very eatable. The interior was not unlike _mince-pie_ without fat, but flavoured with saffron; the exterior was hard, smooth, and yellow.'"

There used to be many a "hush-shop," or house for the sale of unlicensed drink, about Heywood; and if the district was thrown into a riddle, they would turn up, now and then, yet; especially in the outskirts of the town, and up towards the hills. These are generally sly spots, where fuddlers, who like ale for its own sake, can steal in when things are quiet, and get their fill at something less than the licensed price; or carry off a bottle-full into the fields, after the gloaming has come on. Of course hush-shop tipplers could not often indulge in that noisy freedom of speech, nor in those wild bursts of bacchanalian activity vulgarly known by the name of "hell's delight," of which licensed ale-houses are sometimes the scenes; and where the dangerous Lancashire ale-house game, called "Th' Bull upo' th' Bauk," has sometimes finished a night of drunken comedy with a touch of real tragedy. The most suitable customers for the "hush-shop" were quiet, steady soakers, who cared for no other company than a full pitcher; and whose psalm of life consisted of scraps of drinking-songs like the following, trolled out in a low chuckling tone:--

O good ale, thou art my darling, I love thee night, I love thee morning, I love thee new, I love thee old; I love thee warm, I love thee cold! Oh! good ale!

There is an old drinking-song just re-published in "The Songs of the Dramatists," which was printed in 1575, in Bishop Still's comedy of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," though probably known earlier. Fragments of this song are still known and sung in the north of England. The burden runs thus in a Lancashire version:--

Back and side, go bare, go bare, Fuut and hond, go coud; But bally, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it's yung or owd!

Having glanced in this brief way at the progress of Heywood, from the time when it first began to give a human interest to the locality, as a tiny hamlet, about the end of the fifteenth century, up to its present condition, as a cotton-spinning town of twenty thousand inhabitants, surrounded by a district alive with manufacturing activities, I will return to the narrative of my visit to the place, as it fell on one fine afternoon about the end of June.

We had come round from the railway station, along the southern edge of the town, and through the fields, by a footpath which led us into Heywood about one hundred yards from the old chapel in the middle of the place. The mills were stopped. Country people were coming into town to do their errands, and a great part of the working population appeared to be sauntering along the main street, stopping at the shops, to make their markets as they went along; or casting about for their Saturday night's diversion, and gazing from side to side, to see what could be seen. Clusters of factory girls were gathered about the drapers' windows. These girls were generally clean and tidy; and, not unfrequently, there were very intelligent and pretty countenances amongst them. The older part of the factory operatives, both men and women, had often a staid and jaded look. The shops were busy with customers buying clothing, or food, or cheap publications; and the ale-houses were getting lively. A little company of young "factory chaps" were collected about a bookseller's shop, near the old "Queen Anne," looking out for news, or pictures; or reading the periodicals exposed in the windows. Now and then, a select straggler wended his way across the road to change his "library-book" at the Mechanics' Institution. There was considerable stir lower down the street, where a noisy band of music was marching along, followed by an admiring multitude. And, amongst the whole, a number of those active, mischief-loving lads, so well known in every manufacturing town by the name of "doffers," were clattering about, and darting after one another among the crowd, as blithe as if they had never known what work was. We crossed through the middle of the town, and went down the north road into an open tract of meadow land, towards the residence of mine host.

The house was pleasantly situated in a garden, about two stones' throw from the edge of Heywood, in the wide level of grass land called "Yewood Ho' Greyt Meadow." The road goes close by the end of the garden. We entered this garden by a little side gate, and on we went, under richly-blossomed apple trees, and across the grass-plat, into the house. The old housekeeper began to prepare tea for us; and, in the meantime, we made ourselves at home in the parlour, which looked out upon the garden and meadows at the front. Mine host sat down to the piano, and played some of that fine old psalmody which the country people of Lancashire take such delight in. His family consisted of himself, a staid-looking old housekeeper, and his two motherless children. One of these was a timid, bright-eyed little girl, with long flaxen hair, who, as we came through the garden, was playing with her hoop upon the grass-plat, under the blooming apple trees; but who, on seeing a stranger, immediately sank into a shy stillness. The other was a contemplative lad, about thirteen, with a Melancthon style of countenance. I found him sitting in the parlour, absorbed in "Roderick Random." As soon as tea was over, we went out in the cool of the evening, to see the daylight die upon the meadows around. We could hear the stir of Saturday night life in the town. Through the parlour window we had caught glimpses of the weird flittings of a large bat; and, as we stood bare-headed in the garden, it still darted to and fro about the eaves, in dusky, vivid motions. As the cool night stole on, we went in, and the shutters closed us from the scene. We lingered over supper, talking of what newspaper writers call "the topics of the day," and of books, and local characters and customs; and about half an hour before midnight we crept off to bed.

When I rose from bed, and looked through the window of my chamber, the rich haze of a cloudless midsummer morning suffused the air. The sunshine lay glittering all over the dewy fields; for the fiery steeds of Phoebus had not yet drunk up those springs "on chaliced flowers that lie." The birds had been up many an hour, and were carolling and chirping gleefully about the eaves of the house, and in the gardens. The splendour of the day had touched even the dull town on the opposite ridge with its beautifying magic; and Heywood seemed to rest from its labours, and rejoice in the gladness which clothed the heavens and the earth. The long factory chimneys, which had been bathing their smokeless tops all night in the cool air, now looked up serenely through the sunshine at the blue sky, as if they, too, were glad to get rid of the week-day fume, and gaze quietly again upon the loveliness of nature; and all the whirling spinning machinery of the town was lying still and silent as the over-arching heavens. Another Sabbath had dawned upon the world; and that day of God, and god of days, was breathing its balm among the sons of toil once more.

Man has another day to swell the past, And lead him near to little, but his last; But mighty nature bounds as from her birth; The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth; Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam, Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream. Immortal man! behold her glories shine, And cry, exulting inly, "They are mine!" Gaze on, while yet thy gladden'd eye may see; A morrow comes when they are not for thee.

It was a feast to the senses and to the soul to look round upon such a scene at such a time, with the faculties fresh from repose, and conscious of reprieve from that relentless round of necessities that follow them, hot-foot, through the rest of the week. As I dressed myself, I heard mine host's little daughter begin to play "Rosseau's Dream," in the parlour below, and I went down stairs humming a sort of accompaniment to the tune; for it is a sweet and simple melody, which chimed well with the tone of the hour. The shy musician stayed her fingers, and rose timidly from her seat, as I entered the room; but a little coaxing induced her to return to it, and she played the tune over and over again for us, whilst the morning meal was preparing. Breakfast was soon over, and the youngsters dressed themselves for chapel, and left us to ourselves; for the one small bell of Heywood chapel was going "Toll--toll--toll;" and straggling companies of children were wending up the slope from the fields towards their Sunday schools. Through the parlour window, I watched these little companies of country children--so fresh, so glad, and sweet-looking--and as they went their way, I thought of the time when I, too, used to start from home on a Sunday morning, dressed in my holiday suit, clean as a new pin from top to toe; and followed to the door with a world of gentle admonitions. I thought of some things I learned "while standing at my mother's knee;" of the little prayer and the blessing at bed time; of the old solemn tunes which she used to sing when all the house was still, whilst I sat and listened, drinking in those plaintive strains of devotional melody, never to forget them more.

We were now alone in the silent house, and there was a Sabbatical stillness all around. The sunshine gleamed in at the windows and open doors; and, where we sat, we could smell the odours of the garden, and hear the birds outside. We walked forth into the garden, among beds of flowers, and blooming apple trees. We could hear the chirrup of children's voices, still, going up the road, towards the town. From the woods round Heywood Hall, there came over the meadows a thrilling flood of music from feathered singers, sporting in those leafy shades. All nature was at morning service: and it was good to listen to this general canticle of praise to Him "whose service is perfect freedom." A kind of hushed joy seemed to pervade the landscape, which did not belong to any other day, however fine--as if the hills and vales knew it was Sunday. To the wisest men, the whole universe is one place of worship, and the whole course of human life a divine service. The man who has a susceptible heart, and loves nature, will find renovation in communion with her, no matter what troubles may disturb him in the world of man's life:--

For she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life Shall e'er prevail against us or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty-mountain winds be free To blow against thee.

The back yard of the house, in which we were sauntering, was divided from the woods of Heywood Hall by a wide level of rich meadows; and the thick foliage which lapped the mansion from view, looked an inviting shelter from the heat of a cloudless midsummer forenoon--a place where we could wander about swardy plots and lawns, among embowered nooks and mossy paths--bathing in the coolness of green shades, in which a multitude of birds were waking the echoes with a sweet tumult of blending melodies. Being disposed for a walk, we instinctively took the way thitherward. The high road from the town goes close by the front gates of the hall. This road was formerly lined by a thick grove of trees, called "Th' Lung Nursery," reaching nearly from the edge of the village to the gates. The grove so shut out the view, and overhung each side of the way, that the walk between looked lonely after dark; and country folk, who had been loitering late over their ale, in Heywood, began to toot from side to side, with timid glances, and stare with fear at every rustle of the trees, when they came to "Th' Lung Nursery." Even if two were in company, they hutched closer together as they approached this spot, and began to be troubled with vivid remembrances of manifold past transgressions, and to make internal resolutions to "Fear God, an' keep th' co'sey," thenceforth, if they could only manage to "hit th' gate" this once, and get safely through the nursery, and by the water-stead in Hooley Clough, where "Yewood Ho' Boggart comes a-suppin' i'th deeod time o'th neet." This road was then, also, flanked on each side by a sprawling thorn-edge, overgrown with wild mint, thyme, and nettles; and with thistles, brambles, stunted hazles, and wild rose bushes; with wandering honeysuckles weaving about through the whole. It was full of irregular dinges, and "hare-gates," and holes, from which clods had been riven; and perforated by winding tunnels and runs, where the mole, the weasel, the field-mouse, and the hedgehog wandered at will. Among the thorns at the top, there was many an erratic, scratchy breach, the result of the incursions of country herbalists, hunters, bird-nesters, and other roamers of the woods and fields. It was one of those old-fashioned hedges which country lads delight in; where they could creep to and fro, in a perfect revel of freedom and fun, among brushwood and prickles, with no other impediment than a wholesome scratching; and where they could fight and tumble about gloriously, among nettles, mint, mugwort, docks, thistles, sorrel, "Robin-run-i'th-hedge," and a multitude of other wild herbs and flowers, whose names and virtues it would puzzle even a Culpepper to tell; rough and free as so many snod-backed modiwarps--ripping and tearing, and soiling their "good clooas," as country mothers used to call them, by tumbling among the dry soil of the hedge-side, and then rolling slap into the wet ditch at the bottom, among "cuckoo-spit," and "frog-rud," and all sorts of green pool-slush; to the dismay of sundry limber-tailed "Bull-Jones," and other necromantic fry that inhabit such stagnant moistures. Some looked for nests, and some for nuts, while others went rustling up the trees, trying the strength of many a bough; and all were blithe and free as the birds among the leaves, until the twilight shades began to fall. Whilst the sun was still in the sky, they thought little about those boggarts, and "fairees," and "feeorin'," which, according to local tradition, roam the woods, and waters, and lonely places; sometimes with the malevolent intent of luring into their toil any careless intruder upon their secluded domain. Some lurking in the streams and pools, like "Green Teeth," and "Jenny Long Arms," waiting, with skinny claws, for an opportunity to clutch the wanderer upon the bank into the water. Others, like "Th' White Lady," "Th' Skrikin' Woman," "Baum Rappit," "Grizlehurst Boggart," and "Clegg Ho' Boggart," haunting lonely nooks of the green country, and old houses, where they have made many a generation of simple folk pay a toll of superstitious fear for some deed of darkness done in the dim past. Others, like "Nut Nan," prowling about shady recesses of the woods, "wi' a poke-full o' red-whot yetters, to brun nut-steylers their e'en eawt." But, when dusky evening began to steal over the fading scene, and the songs of birds, and all the sounds of day began to die upon the ear--when the droning beetle, and the bat began to flit about; and busy midges danced above the road, in mazy eddies, and spiral columns, between the eye and the sky; then the superstitious teachings of their infancy began to play about the mind; and, mustering their traps, the lads turned their feet homeward, tired, hungry, scratched, dirty, and pleased; bearing away with them--in addition to sundry griping feeds of unripe dogberry, which they had eaten from the hedge-sides--great store of hazlenuts, and earth-nuts; hips and haws; little whistles, made of the bark of the wicken tree; slips of the wild rose, stuck in their caps and button-holes; yellow "skedlocks," and whiplashes made of plaited rushes; and sometimes, also, stung-up eyes and swollen cheeks, the painful trophies of encounters with the warlike inhabitants of "wasp-nests," unexpectedly dropped on, in the course of their frolic.

Oh! sweet youth; how soon it fades; Sweet joys of youth, how fleeting!

The road home was beguiled with clod-battles, "Frog-leap," and "Bob Stone," finishing with "Trinel," and "High Cockolorum," as they drew near their quarters. The old hedge and the nursery have been cleared away, and now the fertile meadows lie open to the view, upon each side of the way.

On arriving at the entrance which leads to Heywood Hall, we turned in between the grey gate-pillars. They had a lone and disconsolate appearance. The crest of the Starkies is gone from the top; and the dismantled shafts look conscious of their shattered fortunes. The wooden gate--now ricketty and rotten--swung to and fro with a grating sound upon its rusty hinges, as we walked up the avenue of tall trees, towards the hall. The old wood was a glorious sight, with the flood of sunshine stealing through its fretted roof of many-patterned foliage, in freakish threads and bars, which played beautifully among the leaves, weaving a constant interchange of green and gold within that pleasant shade, as the plumage of the wood moved with the wind. The scene reminded me of a passage in Spencer's "Faëry Queene:"--

And all within were paths and alleies wide, With footing worne and leading inward farre: Faire harbour that them seems: so in they entred ar.

We went on under the trees, along the carriage road, now tinged with a creeping hue of green; and past the old garden, with its low, bemossed brick wall; and, after sauntering to and fro among a labyrinth of footpaths, which wind about the cloisters of this leafy cathedral, we came to the front of the hall. It stands tenantless and silent in the midst of its ancestral woods, upon the brow of a green eminence, overlooking a little valley, watered by the Roch. The landscape was shut out from us by the surrounding trees; and the place was as still as a lonely hermitage in the heart of an old forest. The tread of our feet upon the flagged terrace in front of the mansion resounded upon the ear. We peeped through the windows, where the rooms were all empty; but the state of the walls and floors, and the remaining mirrors, showed that some care was still bestowed upon this deserted hall. Ivy hung thickly upon some parts of the straggling edifice, which has evidently been built at different periods; though, so far as I could judge, the principal part of it appears to be about two hundred years old. When manufacture began greatly to change the appearance of the neighbouring village and its surrounding scenery, the Starkies left the place; and a wooded mound, in front of the hall, was thrown up and planted, by order of the widow of the last Starkie who resided here, in order to shut from sight the tall chimneys which were rising up in the distance. A large household must have been kept here in the palmy days of the Starkies. The following passage, relative to the ancient inhabitants of Heywood Hall, is quoted from Edwin Butterworth's "History of the Town of Heywood and its Vicinity:"--

A family bearing this name flourished here for many generations; but they were never of much note in county genealogy, though more than one were active in public affairs. In 1492 occurs Robert de Heywode. In the brilliant reign of Elizabeth, Edmund Heywood, Esq., was required, by an order dated 1574, to furnish "a coate of plate, a long bowe, sheffe of arrows, steel cap, and bill, for the military musters."[28] James Heywood, gent., was living before 1604. Peter Heywood, Esq., a zealous magistrate, the representative of this family in the reigns of James the First and Charles the First, was a native and resident of Heywood hall, which was erected during the sixteenth century. It is said that he apprehended Guido Faux coming forth from the vault of the house of parliament on the eve of the gunpowder treason, Nov. 5, 1605. He probably accompanied Sir Thomas Kneuett, in his search of the cellars under the parliament house. In 1641, "an order was issued that the justices of the peace of Westminster should carefully examine what strangers were lodged within their jurisdiction; and that they should administer the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to all suspected of recusancy, and proceed according to those statutes. An afternoon being appointed for that service in Westminster hall, and many persons warned to appear there, amongst the rest one ---- James, a Papist, appeared, and being pressed by Mr. Hayward (Heywood), a justice of the peace, to take the oaths, suddenly drew out his knife and stabbed him; with some reproachful words, 'for persecuting poor Catholics.' This strange, unheard-of outrage upon the person of a minister of justice, executing his office by an order of parliament, startled all men; the old man sinking with the hurt, though he died not of it. And though, for aught I could ever hear, it proceeded only from the rage of a sullen varlet (formerly suspected to be crazed in his understanding), without the least confederacy or combination with any other, yet it was a great countenance to those who were before thought over apprehensive and inquisitive into dangers; and made many believe it rather a design of all the Papists of England, than a desperate act of one man, who could never have been induced to it, if he had not been promised assistance by the rest,"[29] Such is Lord Clarendon's account of an event that has rendered Peter Heywood a person of historical note; how long he survived the attempt to assassinate him is not stated.

It is highly probable that Mr. Heywood had imbibed an undue portion of that anti-Catholic zeal which characterised the times in which he lived, and that he was the victim of those rancorous animosities which persecution never fails to engender.

Peter Heywood, of Heywood, Esq., was one of the gentlemen of the county who compounded for the recovery of their estates, which had been sequestrated 1643-5, for supporting the royal cause. He seems to have been a son of the Mr. Heywood that was stabbed; he re-obtained his property for the sum of £351.[30]

The next of this family on record is Peter _Heiwood_, Esq., who was one of the "counsellors of Jamaica" during the commonwealth. One of his sons, Peter _Heiwood_, Esq., was commemorated by an inscription on a flat stone in the chancel of the church of St. Anne's-in-the-Willows, Aldersgate-ward, London, as follows:--

"Peter Heiwood, that deceased Nov. 2, 1701, younger son of Peter Heiwood, one of the counsellours of Jamaica, by Grace, daughter of Sir John Muddeford, Knight and Baronet, great grandson to Peter Heywood, in the county palatine of Lancaster; who apprehended Guy Faux with his dark lanthorn; and for his zealous prosecution of Papists, as justice of peace, was stabbed in Westminster hall, by John James, Dominican friar, anno. domini. 1640.

"Reader, if not a papist bred, Upon such ashes gently tread."[31]

[28] Harl. MSS. 1,926. There is a pedigree of this family in Dodsworth's MSS. Bodleian Lib. vol. lxxix.

[29] Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," edit. 1714, v. 1, p. 196.

[30] Baines's 4to. "Hist. Lancashire," v. 1, p. 586: v. 2, p. 676. 12mo: v. 1, p. 55. Adams's Cat. of Lords, &c., who compounded for their estates, p. 51.

[31] Survey of London, by Stowe, Strype's edition, 1720, vol 1, fol. 102.

Robert Heywood, of Heywood, Esq., married Mary Haslam, of Rochdale, Dec. 20, 1660; and was probably elder brother of Peter _Heiwood_, of London.

In the visitation of 1664, are traced two lines of the Heywoods, those of Heywood and Walton; from the latter was descended Samuel Heywood, Esq., a Welch judge,[32] uncle of Sir Benjamin Heywood, Baronet, of Claremont, near Manchester. The armorial bearing of the Heywoods, of Heywood, was argent, three torteauxes, between two bendlets gules.

The property of this ancient family, principally consisting of Heywood Hall and adjoining lands, is said to have been purchased by Mr. John Starkey, of the Orchard, in Rochdale, in the latter part of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. Mr. Starkey was living in 1719; his descendant, John Starkey, Esq., married Mary, daughter of Joseph Gregge, Esq., of Chamber Hall, Oldham. John Starkey, Esq., who died March 13, 1780, was father of James Starkey, Esq., of Fell Foot, near Cartmel, Lancashire, the present possessor of Heywood Hall, born September 8, 1762, married, September 2, 1785, Elizabeth, second daughter of Edward Gregg Hopwood, Esq. In 1791, Mr. Starkey served the office of high sheriff of the county. From this family branched the Starkeys of Redivals, near Bury.

Heywood looks anything but picturesque, at present; but, judging from the features of the country about the hall, especially on the north side of it, this house must have been a very pleasant and retired country seat about a century and a half ago.

Descending from the eminence, upon the northern edge of which Heywood Hall is situated,--and which was probably the first inhabited settlement hereabouts, at a time when the ground now covered by the manufacturing town, was a tract of woods and thickets, wild swards, turf moss, and swamps--we walked westward, along the edge of the Roch, towards the manufacturing hamlet of Hooley Bridge. This valley, by the water-side, has a sylvan and cultivated appearance. The quiet river winds round the pastures of the hall, which slope down to the water, from the shady brow upon which it stands. The opposite heights are clad with woods and plantations; and Crimble Hall looks forth from the lawns and gardens upon the summit. About a mile up this valley, towards Rochdale town, in a quiet glen, lies the spot pointed out in Roby's "Tradition" of "Tyrone's Bed," as the place where the famous Irish rebel, Hugh O'Niel, Earl of Tyrone, lived in concealment some time, during the reign of Elizabeth. Even at this day, country folks, who know little or nothing of the tradition, know the place by the name of "Yel's o' Thorone"--an evident corruption of the "Earl of Tyrone." This was the Irish chieftain who burnt the poet Spenser out of his residence, Rathcormac Castle. It was dinner time when we reached the stone bridge at Hooley Clough; so we turned up the road towards home.

[32] Corry's Lancashire, v. 2, p. 619. In Dodsworth's MSS. Bodleian Lib. v. cxvii. p. 163, is a record of Robert Heywood, Esq.

The youngsters and the dinner were waiting for us, when we got back to the house. The little girl was rather more communicative than before; and, after the meal was over, we had more music. But, while this was going on, the lad stole away to some nook, with a book in his hand. And, soon after, the master of the house and I found ourselves again alone, smoking and talking together. I had enjoyed this summer day so far, and was inclined to make the most of it; so, when dinner was over, I went out at the back, and down by a thorn-edge, which divides the meadows. I was soon followed by mine host, and we sauntered on together till we came to a shelving hollow, in which a still pool lay gleaming like a sun among the meadows. It looked cool, and brought the skies to our feet. Sitting down upon its bank, we watched the reflection of many a straggling cloud of gauzy white, sailing over its surface, eastward. Little fishes, leaping up now and then, were the only things which stirred the burnished mirror, for a second or two, into tiny tremulations of liquid gold; and water-flies darted to and fro upon the pool, like nimble fancies in a fertile mind. And thus we lazily enjoyed the glory of a summer day in the fields; while

The lark was singing in the blinding sky, And hedges were white with may.

After awhile, we drifted dreamily asunder, and I crept under the shade of a fence hard by, to avoid the heat; and there lay on my back, looking towards the sky, through my fingers, to keep sight of a fluttering spot from which a skylark poured down its rain of melody upon the fields around. My face was half buried in grass and meadow herbs; and I fell asleep with them peeping about my eye-lids. After half an hour's dreamy doze in the sun--during which my mind seemed to have acted over a whole lifetime in masquerade--I woke up, and, shaking the buzz of field-flies out of my ears, we gathered up our books, and went into the house.

When it drew towards evening, we left the house again--for it was so fine outside, that it seemed a pity to remain under cover longer than necessary--and we walked through the village in Hooley Clough, and on, northward, up hill, and down dell, until we came to a wild upland, called "Birtle," which stretches away along the base of Ashworth Moor. The sun was touching the top of the hills when we reached that elevated tract; and the western heavens were glowing with the grandeur of his decline as we walked across the fields towards an old hamlet called "Grislehurst." Here we stayed a while, conversing with an ancient cottager and his dame, about the history of their native corner, its legendary associations, and other matters interesting to them and to us. We left Grislehurst in the twilight, by a route which led through the deeps of Simpson Clough, and on, homewards, just as the first lamps of evening were lighting up; rejoicing in the approach of a cloudless summer night, as we had rejoiced in the glorious day which had gone down.

The next morning, I returned to Manchester; and, since that time, it has often been a pleasure to me in the crowded city to recollect that summer day, spent in the country north of the town of Heywood. Its images never return to my memory but I wish to hold them there awhile. Emerson says:--"Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faërie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams." If men had their eyes open to the beauties and uses of those elements which are open to all alike, and felt the grandeur of this earth, which is the common home of the living, how much would it reconcile them to their differences of position, and moderate their repinings at the superiority of this man's housing, and that man's dress and diet.

Looking back at the present character and previous history of this town of Heywood, there is some suggestive interest in both the one and the other. The period of its existence--from the time when it first arose, in an almost uncultivated spot, as an habitation of man, till now--is contained in such a brief space, that to any man who cares to consider the nature of its origin, and the character of the influences which have combined to make it such as it now is, the materials for guiding him to a comprehension of these things, lie almost as much within his reach as if the place were a plant which he had put into the soil for himself, and the growth of which he had occasionally watched with interest. In this respect, although Heywood wears much the same general appearance as other cotton-spinning towns, it has something of a character of its own, different from most of those towns of Lancashire, whose histories go back many centuries, often through eventful changes, till they grow dim among the early records of the kingdom in general. Unlike those, however, Heywood is almost entirely the creation of the cotton trade, which itself arose out of the combination of a few ingenious thoughts put into practice by a people who seem to have been eminently fitted by nature to perceive their value, and to act enterprisingly upon what they perceived. If it had been possible for an intelligent man to have lifted himself into mid air above Heywood, about two hundred years ago, when its first cottages began to cluster into a little village, and to settle himself comfortably upon a cloud, so as to be able to watch the growth of the place below, with all the changing phases of its life from then till now, it might present to him a different aspect, and lead him to different conclusions to those engendered by people living and moving among the swarms of human action. In the mind of such a serene overlooker--distinctly observing the detail and the whole of the manner of life beneath him, and fully comprehending the nature of the rise and progress of this Lancashire town--many thoughts might arise, which would not occur to those who creep about the crowded earth, full of little perturbations. But, to almost any thoughtful man, the history of this manufacturing town would illustrate the power which a little practical knowledge gives to a practical people over the physical elements of creation, as well as over that portion of the people who have little or no education, and are, therefore, drifted hither and thither by every wind of circumstance which wafts across the surface of society. It might suggest, too, how much society is indebted, for whatever force or excellence there is in it, to the scattered seeds of silent thought which have quietly done their work among the noise of action--for ever leading it on to still better action; and it might suggest how much the character of the next generation depends upon the education of the present one. Looking at this question of education merely in that point of view in which it affects production, the following passage, by an eminent advocate of education, shall speak for itself:--"Prior to education, the productive power of the six millions of workers in the United Kingdom would be the physical force which they were capable of exerting. In the present day, the power really exerted is equal to the force of a hundred millions of men at least. But the power of the uneducated unit is still the physical force of one man, the balance being exerted by men who understand the principles of mechanics and of chemistry, and who superintend the machine power evolved thereby. Thus the power originated by the few, and superintended by a fraction of society, is seventeen times greater than the strength of all our workers, and is hourly increasing." If a man was a pair of steam looms, how carefully would he be oiled, and tended, and mended, and made to do all that a pair of looms could do. What a loom, full of miraculous faculties is he, compared to these--the master-piece of nature for creative power, and for wonderful variety of capabilities! yet, with what a profuse neglect he is cast away, like the cheapest rubbish on earth!

The Grave of Grislehurst Boggart.

Thought-wrapt, he wandered in the breezy woods, In which the summer, like a hermit, dwelt: He laid him down by the old haunted springs Up-bubbling, 'mid a world of greenery, Shut-eyed, and dreaming of the fairest shapes That roam the woods. --ALEXANDER SMITH.

Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares. --BURNS.

When one gets a few miles off any of the populous towns in Lancashire, many an old wood, many a lonesome clough, many a quiet stream and ancient building, is the reputed haunt of some local sprite, or "boggart," or is enveloped in an atmosphere of dread by the superstitions of the neighbourhood, as being the resort of fairies, or "feeorin."[33] This is frequently the case in retired vales and nooks lying between the towns. But it is particularly so in the hilly parts, where the old manners of the people are little changed, and where many homelets of past ages still stand in their old solitudes, and--like their sparse population--retain many of their ancient characteristics. In such places, the legends and superstitions of the forefathers of Lancashire are cherished with a tenacity which would hardly be credible to the inhabitants of great cities in these days. There, still lingers the belief in witchcraft, and in the power of certain persons to do ill, through peculiar connection with the evil one; and the belief, also, that others--known as "witch-doctors"--are able to "rule the spells," or counteract the malign intents of necromancy; and possess secret charms which afford protection against the foul fiend and all his brood of infernal agencies.

[33] _Feeorin_--fearful things.

A few years ago, I lived at an old farm, called "Peanock," up in the hills, towards Blackstone Edge. At that time, a strong little fellow about twenty-three years of age, called "Robin," was employed as "keaw-lad" at the farm. Robin used to tell me tales of the witches and boggarts of the neighbourhood. The most notable one of them all was "Clegg Ho' Boggart," which is commemorated by the late Mr. John Roby, in his "Traditions of Lancashire." This local sprite is still the theme of many a winter's tale, among the people of the hills about Clegg Hall. The proverb "Aw'm here again--like Clegg Ho' Boggart," is common there, and in the surrounding towns and villages. I remember Robin saying that when he had to go into the "shippon" early on a winter's morning, with a light, he used to advance his lantern and let it shine a minute or two into the "shippon" before he durst enter himself, on account of the "feeorin" which "swarmed up and deawn th' inside i'th neet time." But he said that "things o' that mak couldn't bide leet," for, as soon as his lantern glinted into the place, he could see "witches scuttering through th' slifters o'th wole, by theawsans, like bits o' leet'nin." He used to tell me, too, that a dairy-lass at a neighbouring farm had to let go her "churn-pow," because "a rook o' little green divuls begun a-swarmin up th' hondle, as hoo wur churnin'." And then he would glance, with a kind of unconscious timidity, towards a nook of the yard, where stood three old cottages connected with the farm; and in one of which there dwelt an aged man, of singular habits and appearance, of whose supposed supernatural powers most of the people of that neighbourhood harboured a considerable degree of fear; and, as he glanced towards the corner of the building, he would tell me in an under tone that the Irish cow, "Red Jenny," which used to be "as good a keaw as ever whiskt a tail, had never lookt up sin' owd Bill glented at hur through a hole i'th shippon wole, one mornin, as Betty wur milkin hur." Prejudices of this kind are still common in thinly-peopled nooks of the Lancashire hills. "Boggarts" appear, however, to have been more numerous than they are now, when working people wove what was called "one lamb's wool" in a day; but when it came to pass that they had to weave "three lambs' wools" in a day, and the cotton trade arose, boggarts, and fairies, and "feeorin" of all kinds, began to flee away from the clatter of shuttles, and the tired weaver was fain to creep from his looms to bed, where he could rest his body, and weave his fearful fancies into the freakish pattern of a dream. And then, railway trains began to rumble hourly through solitudes where "the little folk" of past days had held undisturbed sway; and perhaps these helped to dispel some of those dreams of glamour which had been fostered by the ignorance of the past.

Far on in the afternoon of a summer day, I sat at tea with an acquaintance who dwells in the fields outside the town of Heywood. We had spent the forenoon in visiting Heywood Hall, and rambling among its woods, and through a pleasant clough, which winds along the northern base of the eminence on which that old mansion stands. We lingered over the afternoon meal, talking of the past and present of the district around us. We speculated upon the ancient aspect of the country, and the condition and characteristics of its early inhabitants; we talked of the old local gentry, their influence, their residences, and their fortunes; of remarkable local scenes, and men; and of the present features of life in these districts. Part of our conversation related to the scenery of that tract of hills and cloughs which comprises the country, rising, northward, from Heywood up to the lofty range of moorlands which divides that part of Lancashire from Rossendale Forest. Up in this remote tract, there is a solitary hamlet, called Grislehurst. To a stranger's eye, the two quaint farmsteads, which are now the sole relics of the hamlet, would be interesting, if only on account of the retired beauty of their situation, and the romantic character of the scenery around. Grislehurst stands on an elevated platform of land, called "Birtle," or "Birkle," the place of birches. It is bounded on the north by the ridge of Ashworth moor, and the lofty mass of Knowl hill; and on the east by Simpson Clough, a deep ravine, about two miles long, running up into the hills. This glen of precipitous crags, and wood-shrouded waters, is chiefly known to those who like rough and lonesome country walks; and to anybody who loves to ramble among such legend-haunted solitudes, a moonlight walk through "Simpson Clough" would be a pleasure not easily forgotten. Grislehurst stands about a stone's throw from the western brink of the clough, and out of the way of common observation. But it is not only the lone charm of its situation which makes this hamlet interesting. Grislehurst is a settlement of the early inhabitants of the district; and was for some centuries one of the seats of the Holt family, of Grislehurst, Stubley, and Castleton, in this parish; a branch of the Holts of Sale, Ashton, Cheshire. Some of this family fought in the Scottish wars, and also in favour of the royal cause, at Edgehill, Newberry, Marston Moor, &c., and were named in King Charles's projected order of the Royal Oak.[34] There was a Judge Holt, of the Holts of Sale; and a James Holt, whose mother was co-heiress to Sir James de Sutton; he was killed at Flodden Field. Mary, the daughter of James Holt, the last of the family who resided at Castleton Hall, in this parish, married Samuel, brother of Humphrey Cheetham. The manor of Spotland was granted by Henry VIII. to Thomas Holt, of Grislehurst, who was knighted in Scotland, by Edward, Earl of Hertford, in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of that monarch. The Holts were the principal landowners in the parish of Rochdale at the close of the sixteenth century. What remains of Grislehurst is still associated in the mind with the historic interest which attaches to this once powerful local family. The place is also closely interwoven with some other ancient traditions of the locality, oral and written.[35] In earlier years, I have often wandered about the woods, and waters, and rocky recesses of this glen, thinking of the tale of the rebel Earl,[36] who is said to have concealed himself, two centuries ago, in a neighbouring clough which bears his name; and, wrapt in a dreamland of my own, sometimes a little tinctured with the wizard lore which lingers among the primitive folk of that quarter. But, in all my walks thereabouts, I had never visited Grislehurst, till this summer afternoon, when, as we sat talking of the place, my curiosity impelled me to propose an evening ramble to the spot; from which we could return, by another route, through Simpson Clough.

[34] Thomas Posthumus Holt, Esq., was one of the intended Knights of the Order of the Royal Oak. According to MS. memorandum, he died 26th March, 1669, "after sown-sett a hower, as they report it."--_Burke's Commoners._

[35] See "Tyrone's Bed," in Roby's "Traditions of Lancashire."

[36] The turbulent Earl of Tyrone, who headed the Irish rebellion in the reign of Elizabeth.

We were not quite half an hour's walk from Grislehurst when we started on the north road from Heywood; and the sun was still up in the heavens. Half a mile brought us into Hooley Clough, where the road leads through the village of Hooley Bridge. This village lines the opposite banks of the Roch at that place. Its situation is retired and picturesque. The vale in which it lies is agreeably adorned with plantations, and the remains of old woods; and the whole scenery is green and pleasant. The village itself has a more orderly and wholesome appearance than any other manufacturing hamlet which I remember. The houses were clean and comfortable-looking, and the roads in fair condition. I noticed that nearly every cottage had its stock of coals piled up under the front window, and open to the street; the "cobs" nearly built up into a square wall, and the centre filled up with the "sleck an' naplins." It struck me that if the people of Manchester were to leave their coals thus free to the world, the course of a single night would "leave not a wreck behind." The whole population of the place is employed by the Fenton family, whose mills stand close to the margin of the river, in the hollow of the clough.

We went up the steep cart road leading out of Hooley Clough towards the north, emerging into the highway from Bury to Rochdale, about a quarter of a mile from the lower end of Simpson Clough, and nearly opposite the lodge of Bamford Hall. The country thereabouts is broken into green hills and glens, with patches of old woods, shading the sides of the cloughs. It is bleak and sterile in some parts, and thinly populated, over the whole tract, up to the mountainous moors. As we descended the highway into Simpson Clough, through an opening in the trees, we caught a glimpse of "Makin mill," low down in a green valley to the west. This old mill was the first cotton factory erected in the township of Heap. It was built about 1780, by the firm of Peel, Yates, and Co., and now belongs to Edmund Peel, Esq., brother to the late prime minister. Looking over the northern parapet of the bridge, in the hollow of the road, the deep gully of the clough is filled with a cluster of mills, and the cottages attached to them. Woody heights rise abruptly around, and craggy rocks over-frown this little nest of manufacture, in the bottom of the ravine. We climbed up the steep road, in the direction of Bury, and on reaching the summit, at a place called "Th' Top o'th Wood," we turned off at the end of a row of stone cottages, and went to the right, on a field-path which leads to Grislehurst. Half a mile's walk brought us to two old farm-houses, standing a little apart. We were at a loss to know which of the two, or whether either of them belonged to Grislehurst Hall. The largest took our attention most, on account of some quaint, ornamental masonry built up in its walls; though evidently not originally belonging to the building. We went round to look at the other side, where similar pieces of ancient masonry were incorporated. The building, though old, was too modern, and had too much barn-like plainness about it to be the hall of the Holts. And then, the country around was all green meadow and pasture; and if this building was not Grislehurst Hall, there was none. I began to think that the land was the most remarkable piece of antiquity about the place. But one part of the west side of this building formed a comfortable cottage residence, the window of which was full of plants, in pots. An hale old man, bareheaded, and in his shirt-sleeves, leaned against the door-cheek, with his arms folded. He was short and broad-set, with fresh complexion and bright eyes; and his firm full features, and stalwart figure, bespoke a life of healthy habits. He wore new fustian breeches, tied with black silk ribbon at the knees. Leaning there, and looking calmly over the fields in the twilight, he eyed us earnestly, as country folk do when strangers wander into their lonely corners. The soft summer evening was sinking beautifully on the quiet landscape, which stretches along the base of Ashworth moor. The old man's countenance had more of country simplicity than force of character in it; yet he was very comely to look upon, and seemed a natural part of the landscape around him; and the hour and the man together, somehow, brought to my mind a graphic line in the book of Genesis, about Isaac going out "to meditate in the field at eventide." After we had sauntered about the place a few minutes--during which the old cottager watched us with a calm but curious eye--we went toward him with the usual salutation about it being a "fine neet," and such like. He melted at once from his statuesque curiosity, and, stepping slowly from the threshold, with his arms folded, replied, "Ay, it is, for sure.... Wi'n had grand groo-weather[37] as week or two. But a sawp o' deawnfo' 'ud do a seet o' good just neaw; an' we'st ha' some afore lung; or aw'm chetted. Owd Knowe[38] has bin awsin to put hur durty cap on a time or two to-day; an' as soon as hoo can shap to tee it, there'll be wayter amoon us, yo'n see." His dame, hearing the conversation, came forth to see what was going on, and wandered slowly after us down the lane. She was a strong-built and portly old woman, taller than her husband; and her light-complexioned face beamed with health and simplicity. The evening was mild and still, and the old woman wore no bonnet; nor even the usual kerchief on her head. Her cap and apron were white as new snow, and all her attire looked sound and sweet, though of homely cut and quality. I knew, somehow, that the clothes she wore were scented with lavender or such like herbs, which country folk lay at the bottom of the "kist," for the sake of the aroma which they impart to their clothing. And no king's linen could be more wholesomely perfumed. Give me a well-washed shirt, bleached on a country hedge, and scented with country herbs! The hues of sunset glowed above the lofty moors in front of us, and the stir of day was declining into the rich hum of summer evening. The atmosphere immediately around seemed clearer than when the sun was up; but a shade of hazy gray was creeping over the far east. We lounged along the lane, with the comely dame following us silently, at a distance of three or four yards, wondering what we could be, and why we had wandered into that nook at such a time. After a little talk with the old man, about the hay-crop, the news of the town, and such like, we asked him whether the spot we were upon was Grislehurst; and he replied, "Yo're upo' the very clod."

[37] _Groo-weather_--growing-weather.

[38] Knowl hill, between Rochdale and Rossendale.

We then inquired where Grislehurst Hall stood; and whether the building of which his cottage was a part, had been any way connected with it.

He brightened up at the mention of Grislehurst Hall; and, turning sharply round, he said with an air of surprise, "What! dun yo pretend to know aught abeawt Gerzlehus' Ho'?... Not mich, aw think; bi'th look on yo."

I told him that all we knew of it was from reading, and from what we had heard about it; and that, happening to be in the neighbourhood, we had wandered up to see if there were any remains of it in existence.

"Ay, well," said he--and as he said it, his tone and manner assumed a touch of greater importance than before--"if that's o' th' arran' yo han, aw deawt yo'n made a lost gate. Noather yo, nor nobory elze needs to look for Gerzlehus' Ho' no more. It's gwon, lung sin!... But yo'n let reet for yerrin a bit o' summat abeawt it, if that'll do." He then turned slowly round, and, pointing to a plot of meadow land which abutted upon a dingle, to the south, he said, "Yo see'n that piece o' meadow lond, at th' edge o'th green hollow theer?"

"Yes."

"Well; that's the spot wheer Gerzlehus' Ho' stoode, when aw're a lad. To look at't neaw, yo wouldn't think at oathur heawse or hut had studd'n upo' that clod; for it's as good a bit o' meadow lond as ever scythe swept.... But that's the very spot wheer Gerzlehus' Ho' stoode. An' it're a fine place too, mind yo; once't of a day. There's nought like it upo' this country-side neaw; as heaw 'tis: noather Baemforth Ho', nor noan on 'em. But what, things are very mich awturt sin then.... New-fangle't folk, new-fangle't ways, new-fangle't everything. Th' owd ho's gwon neaw, yo see'n; an' th' trees are gwon, 'at stoode abeawt it. The dule steawnd theem at cut 'em deawn, say I![39] An' then th' orchart's gwon; an' th' gardens an' o' are gwon; nobbut a twothre at's laft o'er-anent this biggin--aw dar say yo see'd 'em as yo coom up--they're morels.... An' then, they'n bigged yon new barn upo' th' knowe; an' they'n cut, an' they'n carve't, an' they'n potter't abeawt th' owd place, whol it doesn't look like th' same; it doesn't for sure--not like th' same."

[39] _The dule steawnd theem 'at cut em deawn_--the devil astonish those who cut them down.

We now asked him again whether the large stone building, in part of which he lived, had belonged to the old hall.

"Ay, well," said he, looking towards it, "that's noan sich a feaw buildin', that isn't. That're part o'th eawt-heawsin to Gerzlehus' Ho'; yo may see. There's a window theer, an' a dur-hole, an' some moor odd bits abeawt it, of an owdish mak. Yo con happen tay summat fro thoose. But it's divided into different livin's neaw, yo see'n. There's a new farmer lives i'th top end theer. He's made greyt awterations. It's a greadly good heawse i'th inside; if yo see'd through."

"Well," said I, "and what sort of a place was Grislehurst Hall itself?"

"What, Gerzlehus' Ho'?" replied he; "well, aw should know, as hea 'tis; if onybody does. Aw've been a good while upo' th' clod for nought if I dunnut.... Ay, thae may laugh; but aw're weel acquainted with this greawn afore thir born, my lad--yers to mo, neaw?"[40]

[40] _Yers to mo, neaw?_--hearest thou me, now?

I made some excuse for having smiled, and he went on.

"Gerzlehus' Ho' wur a very greyt place, yo may depend. It're mostly built o' heavy oak bauks.... There wur ir Jammy lad,[41] an' me, an' some moor on us--eh, we han carted some of a lot o' loads o' fine timber an' stuff off that spot, at time an' time! An' there's bin a deeol o' good flags, an' sich like, ta'en eawt o'th lond wheer th' heawse stoode; an' eawt o'th hollow below theer--there has so."

[41] _Ir Jammy lad_--our James's son.

"How long is that since?" said I.

The old woman, who had been listening behind us, with her hands clasped under her apron, now stepped up, and said,

"Heaw lung sin? Why, it's aboon fifty year sin. He should know moor nor yo abeawt it, aw guess."

"Ay," said the old man, "aw've known this clod aboon fifty year, for sure. An' see yo," continued he, "there wur a shootin'-butts i' that hollow; sin aw can tell on. And upo' yon green," said he, turning round towards the north, and pointing off at the end of the building, "upo' yon green there stoode an owd sun-dial, i'th middle of a piece o' lond at's bin a chapel-yort, aforetime. They say'n there's graves theer yet. An' upo' that knowe, wheer th' new barn stons, there wur a place o' worship--so th' tale gwos."

It was clear that we had set him going on a favourite theme, and we must, therefore, bide the issue.

Turning his face to the west, he pointed towards a green eminence at a short distance, and said, "To this day they co'n yon hillock 'Th' Castle,' upo' keawnt on there once being a place theer where prisoners were confin't. An' that hee greawnd gwos bi'th name o'th 'Gallows Hill;' what for, I know not."

He then paused, and, pointing to a little hollow near the place where we stood, he slightly lowered his voice as he continued--"An' then, aw reckon yo see'n yon bend i'th lone, wheer th' ash tree stons?"

"Ay."

"Well," said he, "that's the very spot wheer Gerzlehus' Boggart's buried."

My thoughts had so drifted away in another direction, that I was not prepared for such an announcement as this. I was aware that the inhabitants of that district clung to many of the superstitions of their forefathers; but the thing came upon me so unexpectedly, and when my mind was so quietly absorbed in dreams of another sort, that, if the old man had fired off a pistol close to my ear, I should not have been much more astonished; though I might have been more startled. All that I had been thinking of vanished at once; and my curiosity was centred in this new phase of the old man's story. I looked into his face to see whether he really meant what he had said; but there it was, sure enough. In every outward feature he endorsed the sincerity of his inward feeling. His countenance was as solemn as an unlettered gravestone.

"Grislehurst Boggart;" said I, looking towards the place once more.

"Ay;" replied he. "That's wheer it wur laid low; an' some of a job it wur. Yo happen never yerd on't afore."

The old woman now took up the story, with more earnestness even than her husband.

"It's a good while sin it wur laid; an' there wur a cock buried wi' it, with a stoop[42] driven through it. It're noan sattle't with a little; aw'll uphowd yo."

"And dun you really think, then," said I, "that this place has been haunted by a boggart?"

"Has bin--be far!" replied she. "It is neaw! Yodd'n soon find it eawt, too, iv yo live't upo' th' spot. It's very mich if it wouldn't may yor yure ston of an end; oathur wi' one marlock or another.[43] There's noan so mony folk at likes to go deawn yon lone, at after delit,[44] aw con tell yo."

"But, if it's laid and buried," replied I, "it surely doesn't trouble you now."

"Oh, well," said the old woman, "iv it doesn't, it doesn't; so there needs no moor. Aw know some folk winnot believe sich things; there is at'll believe nought at o', iv it isn't fair druvven into 'em, wilto, shalto;[45] but this is a different case, mind yo. Eh, never name it; thoose at has it to deeol wi' knows what it is; but thoose at knows nought abeawt sich like--whau, it's like summat an' nought talkin' to 'em abeawt it: so we'n e'en lap it up where it is."

[42] _Stoop_--a stake; a long piece of pointed wood.

[43] _Marlock_--a freak; a prank.

[44] _Delit_--daylight.

[45] _Wilto, shalto_--by force; against the will.

"Well, well, but stop," said the old man. "Yo say'n 'at it doesn't trouble us neaw. Why, it isn't aboon a fortnit sin th' farmer's wife at the end theer yerd summat i'th deeod time o'th neet; an' hoo wur welly thrut eawt o' bed, too, beside--so then."

"Ah," said the old woman, "sich wark as that's scarrin',[46] i'th neet time.... An' they never could'n find it eawt. But aw know'd what it wur in a minute. Th' farmer's wife an me wur talking it o'er again, yesterday; an' hoo says 'at ever sin it happen't hoo gets quite timmersome as soon as it drays toawrd th' edge o' dark; iv there's nobory i'th heawse but hersel'.... Well, an' one wyndy neet--as aw're sittin' bi'th fire--aw yerd summat like a--"

Here the old man interrupted her:--

"It's no use folk tellin' me at they dunnut believe sich like things," said he, seeming not to notice his wife's story; "it's no use tellin' me they dunnut believe it! Th' pranks at it's played abeawt this plaze, at time an' time, would flay ony wick soul to yer tell on."

"Never name it!" said she; "aw know whether they would'n or not.... One neet, as aw're sittin by mysel'--"

Her husband interposed again, with an abstracted air:--

"Un-yaukin' th' horses; an' turnin' carts an' things o'er i'th deep neet time; an' shiftin' stuff up and deawn, when folk are i' bed; it's rather flaysome, yo may depend. But then, aw know, there isn't a smite o' sense i' flingin' one's wynt away wi' telling o' sich things, to some folk.... It's war nor muckin' wi' sond, an' drainin' wi' cinders."

"And it's buried yonder," said I.

"Ay," replied he, "just i'th hollow; where th' ash tree is. That used to be th' owd road to Rachda', when aw're a lad."

"Do you never think of delving the ground up," said I.

"Delve! nawe," answered he; "aw'st delve noan theer."

The old woman broke in again:--

"Nawe; he'll delve noan theer; nut iv aw know it! Nor no mon else dar lay a finger upo' that clod. Joseph Fenton's[47] a meeterly bowd chap; an' he's ruvven everything up abeawt this country-side, welly; but he dar not touch Gerzlehus' Boggart, for his skin! An' aw houd his wit good, too, mind yo!"

[46] _Scarrin_--scaring; terrifying.

[47] One of the Fenton family who own the land there.

It was useless attempting to unsettle the superstitions of this primitive pair. They were too far gone. And it was, perhaps, best to let the old couple glide on through the evening of their life, untroubled by any ill-timed wrangling.

But the old dame suspected, by our looks, that we were on easy terms with our opinion of the tale; and she said, "Aw dunnot think yo believ'n a wort abeawt it!"

This made us laugh in a way that left little doubt upon the question; and she turned away from us, saying, "Well, yo're weel off iv yo'n nought o' that mak o' yo'r country-side."

We had now got into the fields, in the direction by which we intended to make our way home; and the old people seemed inclined to return to their cottage. We halted, and looked round a few minutes, before parting.

"You've lived here a good while," said I to the old man, "and know all the country round."

"Aw know every fuut o'th greawnd about this part--hill an' hollow, wood and wayter-stid."

"You are getting to a good age, too," continued I.

"Well," said he, "aw'm gettin' boudly on into th' fourth score. Ir breed are a lungish-wynded lot, yo see'n; tak 'em one wi' another."

"You appear to have good health, for your age," said I.

"Well," replied he, "aw ail mich o' nought yet--why, aw'm meyt-whol,[48] an' sich like; an' aw can do a day-wark wi' some o'th young uns yet--thank God for't.... But then aw'st come to't in a bit, yo known--aw'st come too't in a bit. Aw'm so like.[49] Folk connut expect to ha' youth at both ends o' life, aw guess; an' wi mun o' on us oather owd be, or yung dee, as th' sayin' is."

[48] _Meyt-whol_--meat-whole; able to eat his meals.

[49] _Aw'm so like_--it may naturally be expected that I shall.

"It's gettin' time to rest at your age, too."

"Whau; wark's no trouble to me, as lung as aw con do't. Beside, yo see'n, folk at's a dur to keep oppen, connut do't wi'th wynt."[50]

[50] _Folk at's a dur to keep oppen, connut do't wi'th wynt_--folk that have a house to maintain, cannot do it with the wind.

"Isn't Grislehurst cold and lonely in winter time?"

"Well; it is--rayther," said he. "But we dunnot think as mich at it as teawn's-folk would do.... It'll be a greyt deeol warse at th' top o' Know hill yon, see yo. It's cowd enough theer to starve an otter to deeoth, i' winter time. But, here, we're reet enough, for th' matter o' that. An' as for company, we gwon a-neighbourin' a bit, neaw an' then, yo see'n. Beside, we getten to bed sooner ov a neet nor they dun in a teawn."

"To my thinkin'," said the old woman, "aw wouldn't live in a teawn iv eh mut wear red shoon."

"But you hav'n't many neighbours about here."

"Oh, yigh," said he. "There's th' farmer's theer; and one or two moor. An' then, there's th' 'Top o'th Wood' folk. Then there's 'Hooley Clough,' and th' 'War Office,'[51]--we can soon get to oathur o' thoose, when we want'n a bit ov an extra do.... Oh! ah; we'n plenty o' neighbours! But th' Birtle folk are a deeol on um sib an' sib, rib an' rib--o' ov a litter--Fittons an' Diggles, an' Fittons an' Diggles o'er again. An' wheer dun yo come fro, sen yo?"

[51] _Th' War Office_--a name applied to the village of Bamford.

We told him.

"Well," said he; "an' are yo i'th buildin' line--at aw mun be so bowd?"

We again explained the motive of our visit.

"Well," said he; "it's nought to me, at aw know on--nobbut aw're thinkin' like.... Did'n yo ever see Baemforth Ho', afore it're poo'd deawn?"

"Never."

"Eh, that're a nice owd buildin'! Th' new un hardly comes up to't, i' my e'en--as fine as it is.... An' are yo beawn back this gate, then?"

"Ay; we want to go through th' clough."

"Well; yo mun mind heaw yo gwon deawn th' wood-side; for it's a rough gate. So, good neet to yo!"

We bade them both "Good night!" and were walking away, when he shouted back, "Hey! aw say! Dun yo know Ned o' Andrew's?" "No." "He's the very mon for yo! Aw've just unbethought mo! He knows moor cracks nor onybody o' this side--an' he'll sit a fire eawt ony time, tellin' his bits o' tales. Sper ov anybody at Hooley Bridge, an' they'n tell yo wheer he lives. So, good neet to yo!"

Leaving the two old cottagers, and their boggart-haunted hamlet, we went over the fields towards Simpson Clough. The steep sides of this romantic spot are mostly clothed with woods of oak and birch. For nearly a mile's length, the clough is divided into two ravines, deep, narrow, and often craggy--and shady with trees. Two streams flow down from the moors above, each through one of these gloomy defiles, till they unite at a place from whence the clough continues its way southward, in one wider and less shrouded expanse, but still between steep and rocky banks, partly wooded. When the rains are heavy upon the moors, these streams rush furiously through their rock-bound courses in the narrow ravines, incapable of mischief, till they meet at the point where the clough becomes one, when they thence form a strong and impetuous torrent, which has, sometimes, proved destructive to property lower down the valley. Coming to the western brink of this clough, we skirted along in search of an opening by which we could go down into it with the least difficulty. A little removed from the eastern edge, and nearly opposite to us, stood Bamford new hall, the residence of James Fenton, Esq., one of the wealthy cotton-spinners in this locality. A few yards from that mansion, and nearer to the edge of the clough, stood, a few years ago, the venerable hall of the Bamfords of Bamford, one of the oldest families belonging to the old local gentry; and, probably, among the first Saxon settlers there. Thomas de Bamford occurs about 1193. Adam de Bamford granted land in villa de Bury, to William de Chadwick, in 1413; and Sir John Bamford was a fellow of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, in 1506.[52] A William Bamford, Esq., of Bamford, served the office of High Sheriff of the county, in 1787. He married Ann, daughter of Thomas Blackburne, Esq., of Orford and Hale, and was father of Ann, lady of John Ireland Blackburne, Esq., M.P. He was succeeded by Robert Bamford, Esq., who, from his connection with the Heskeths of Cheshire, took the name of Robert Bamford Hesketh, Esq., and married Miss Frances Lloyd, of Gwrych Castle. Lloyd Hesketh Bamford Hesketh, Esq., of Gwrych Castle, Denbighshire, married Emily Esther Ann, youngest daughter of Earl Beauchamp.[53] The old hall of the Bamfords was taken down a few years ago. I do not remember ever seeing it myself, but the following particulars respecting it have been kindly furnished to me by a native gentleman, who knew it well:--"It was a fine old building of the Tudor style, with three gables in front, which looked towards the high road; it was of light-coloured ashler stone, such as is found in the neighbourhood; with mullions, and quaint windows and doors to match; and was, I think, dated about 1521. Such another building you will certainly not find on this side of the county. Castleton Hall comes, in my opinion, nearest to it in venerable appearance; but Bamford Hall had a lighter and more cheerful aspect; its situation, also, almost on the edge of the rocky chasm of Simpson Clough, or, as it is often called, Guestless, _i.e._ Grislehurst Clough, gave an air of romance to the place, which I do not remember to have noticed about any ancient residence with which I am acquainted."

[52] _Hollingworth's Mancuniensis_, Willis's edition, p. 53.

[53] Court Magazine, vol. 8, No. 45.

Stillness was falling upon the scene; but the evening wind sung lulling vespers in Grislehurst wood; and, now and then, there rose from the rustling green, the silvery solo of some lingering singer in those leafy choirs, as we worked our way through the shade of the wood, until we came to the bed of "Nadin Water," in the shrouded hollow of the clough. The season had been dry, and the water lay in quiet pools of the channel,--gleaming in the gloom, where the light fell through the trees. We made our way onward, sometimes leaping from stone to stone in the bed of the stream, sometimes tearing over the lower part of the bank, which was broken and irregular, and scattered with moss-greened fragments of fallen rock, or slippery and swampy with lodgments of damp, fed by rindles and driblets of water, running more or less, in all seasons, from springs in the wood-shaded steep. In some parts, the bank was overgrown with scratchy thickets, composed of dogberry-stalks, wild rose-bushes, prickly hollins and thorns, young hazles and ash trees; broad-leaved docks, and tall, drooping ferns; and, over all, hung the thick green of the spreading wood. Pushing aside the branches, we laboured on till we came into the opening where the streams combine. A stone bridge crosses the water at this spot, leading up to the woody ridge which separates the two ravines, in the upper part of the clough. Here we climbed from the bed of the stream, and got upon a cart-road which led out of the clough, and up to the Rochdale road, which crosses the lower end of it, at a considerable elevation. The thin crescent of a new moon's rim hung like a silver sickle in the sky; and the stars were beginning to glow, in "Jove's eternal house!" whilst the fading world below seemed hushed with awe, to see that sprinkling of golden lights coming out in silence once more from the over-spanning blue. We walked up the slope, from the silent hollow, between the woods, and over the knoll, and down into Hooley Clough again, by the way we came at first. Country people were sauntering about, upon the main road, and in the bye-lanes, thereabouts, in twos and threes. In the village of Hooley Bridge, the inhabitants were lounging at their cottage doors, in neighbourly talk, enjoying the close of a summer day; and, probably, "Ned o' Andrew's" was sitting in some quiet corner of the village, amusing a circle of eager listeners with his quaint country tales.

A short walk brought us to the end of our ramble, and we sat down to talk over what we had seen and heard. My visit to Grislehurst had been all the more interesting that I had no thought of meeting with such a living evidence of the lingering superstitions of Lancashire there. I used to like to sit with country folk, hearkening to their old-world tales of boggarts, and goblins, and fairies,

That plat the manes of horses in the night, And cake the elf lock in foul, sluttish airs;

and I had thought myself well acquainted with the boggart-lore of my native district; but the goblin of Grislehurst was new to me. By this time I knew that in remote country houses the song of the cricket and the ticking of the clock were beginning to be distinctly heard; and that in many a solitary cottage these were, now, almost the only sounds astir, except the cadences of the night wind, sighing around, and making every crevice into a voice of mystic import to superstitious listeners; while, perhaps, the rustle of the trees blended with the dreamy ripple of some neighbouring brooklet. The shades of night would, by this time, have fallen upon the haunted homesteads of Grislehurst, and, in the folds of that dusky robe, would have brought to the old cottagers their usual fears, filled with

Shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends;

and I could imagine the good old pair creeping off to repose, and covering up their eyes more carefully than usual from the goblin-peopled gloom, after the talk we had with them about Grislehurst Boggart.

Boggart Ho' Clough.

Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here we shall see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. --SHAKSPERE.

There is a quiet little clough about three miles from Manchester, near the old village of Blackley. The best entrance to it is by a gateway leading from the southern edge of a shady steep called "Entwisle Broo," on the highway from Manchester to Middleton. Approaching the spot in this direction, a winding road leads down between a low bemossed wall on the right, and a thorn hedge, which screens the green depth on the left. The trees which line the path overlap the way with shade in summer time, till it reaches the open hollow, where stands a brick-built farm-house, with its outbuildings, and gardens,--sheltered in the rear by the wooded bank of the clough. Thence, this pretty Lancashire dell wanders on southward for a considerable distance, in picturesque quietude. The township of Blackley, in which it is situated, retains many traces of its former rural beauty, and some remnants of the woods which once covered the district. As a whole, Blackley is, even yet, so pleasantly varied in natural feature as to rank among the prettiest scenery around Manchester, although its valleys are now, almost all of them, more or less, surrendered to the conquering march of manufacture--all, except this secluded glen, known by the name of "Boggart Ho' Clough." Here, still, in this sylvan "deer-leap" of the Saxon hunter, the lover of nature, and the jaded townsman, have a tranquil sanctuary, where they can wander, cloistered from the tumults of life; and there is many a contemplative rambler who seeks the retirement of this leafy dell, the whole aspect of which seems to invite the mind to a "sessions of sweet, silent thought." One can imagine it such a place as a man of poetic temperament would delight in; and the interest which has gathered around it is not lessened by the fact, that before Samuel Bamford, the poet, left this district to take up his abode in the metropolis, he dwelt at a pleasant cottage, on the summit of the upland, near the eastern edge of the clough. And here, in his native sequestration, he may have sometimes felt the significance of Burns's words,--

The muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel' he learn'd to wander, Down by some streamlet's sweet meander, And no think lang.

The rural charms and retired peacefulness of "Boggart Ho' Clough" might well, in the vicinity of a place like Manchester, account for part of its local celebrity; but not for the whole of it. The superstitions of the locality and the shaping power of imagination have clothed the place with an interest which does not solely belong to the embowered gloom of its green recesses; nor to its picturesque steeps, overgrown with fern and underwood; nor to the beauty of its swardy holm, spreading out a pleasant space in the vale; nor to the wimpling rill which wanders through it from end to end,

Amongst the pumy stones, which seem to plaine, With gentle murmure, that his course they do restraine.

Man has clothed the scene in a drapery of wonder and fear, woven in the creative loom of his own imagination. Any superstitious stranger, wandering there, alone, under the influence of a midnight moon, would probably think this a likely place for the resort of those spiritual beings who "fly by night." He might truly say, at such an hour, that if ever "Mab" held court on the green earth, "Boggart Ho' Clough" is just such a nook, as one can imagine, that her mystic choir would delight to dance in, and sing,--

Come, follow, follow me, Ye fairy elves that be, Light tripping o'er the green, Come follow Mab, your queen; Hand in hand we'll dance around, For this place is fairy ground.

The place is now associated with the superstitions of the district; and on that account, as well as on account of its natural attractions, it has been the theme of more than one notable pen. In Roby's "Traditions of Lancashire," there is a story called "The Bar-gaist, or Boggart," which is connected with "Boggart Ho' Clough." From this story, which was contributed to that work by Mr. Crofton Croker, author of "The Fairy Legends," I quote the following:--

"Not far from the little snug, smoky village of Blakeley, or Blackley, there lies one of the most romantic of dells, rejoicing in a state of singular seclusion, and in the oddest of Lancashire names, to wit, 'Boggart-Hole.' Rich in every requisite for picturesque beauty and poetical association, it is impossible for me (who am neither a painter nor a poet) to describe this dell as it should be described; and I will, therefore, only beg of thee, gentle reader, who, peradventure, mayst not have lingered in this classical neighbourhood, to fancy a deep, deep dell, its steep sides fringed down with hazel and beech, and fern and thick undergrowth, and clothed at the bottom with the richest and greenest sward in the world. You descend, clinging to the trees, and scrambling as best you may,--and now you stand on haunted ground! Tread softly, for this is the Boggart's clough. And see in yonder dark corner, and beneath the projecting mossy stone, where that dusky, sullen cave yawns before us, like a bit of Salvator's best: there lurks that strange elf, the sly and mischievous Boggart. Bounce! I see him coming;--oh no, it was only a hare bounding from her form; there it goes--there!

"I will tell you of some of the pranks of this very Boggart, and how he teased and tormented a good farmer's family in a house hard by; and I assure you it was a very worthy old lady who told me the story. But, first, suppose we leave the Boggart's demesne, and pay a visit to the theatre of his strange doings.

"You see that old farm-house about two fields distant, shaded by the sycamore tree: that was the spot which the Boggart or Bar-gaist selected for his freaks; there he held his revels, perplexing honest George Cheetham--for that was the farmer's name--scaring his maids, worrying his men, and frightening the poor children out of their seven senses; so that, at last, not even a mouse durst show himself indoors at the farm, as he valued his whiskers, five minutes after the clock had struck twelve."

The story goes on describing the startling pranks of this invisible torment of honest George Cheetham's old haunted dwelling. It tells how that the Boggart, which was a long time a terror to the farmer's family, "scaring the maids, worrying the men, and frightening the poor children," became at last a familiar, mysterious presence--in a certain sense, a recognised member of the household troop--often heard, but never seen; and sometimes a sharer in the household conversation. When merry tales were being told around the fire, on winter nights, the Boggart's "small, shrill voice, heard above the rest, like a baby's penny trumpet," joined the general laughter, in a tone of supernatural congeniality; and the hearers learned, at last, to hear without dismay, if not to love the sounds which they had feared before. But Boggarts, like men, are moody creatures; and this unembodied troubler of the farmer's lonely house seems to have been sometimes so forgetful of everything like spiritual dignity, or even of the claims of old acquaintance, as to reply to the familiar banter of his mortal co-tenants, in a tone of petty malignity. He even went so far, at last, as to revenge himself for some fancied insult, by industriously pulling the children up and down by the head and legs in the night time, and by screeching and laughing plaguily in the dark, to the unspeakable annoyance of the inmates. In order to get rid of this nocturnal torment, it appears that the farmer removed his children into other sleeping apartments, leaving the Boggart sole tenant of their old bedroom, which seems to have been his favourite stage of action. The story concludes as follows:--

"But his Boggartship, having now fairly become the possessor of a room at the farm, it would appear, considered himself in the light of a privileged inmate, and not, as hitherto, an occasional visitor, who merely joined in the general expression of merriment. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt; and now the children's bread and butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and milk would be dashed to the ground by an unseen hand; or, if the younger ones were left alone but for a few minutes, they were sure to be found screaming with terror on the return of their nurse. Sometimes, however, he would behave himself kindly. The cream was then churned, and the pans and kettles scoured without hands. There was one circumstance which was remarkable:--the stairs ascended from the kitchen; a partition of boards covered the ends of the steps, and formed a closet beneath the staircase. From one of the boards of this partition a large round knot was accidentally displaced; and one day the youngest of the children, while playing with the shoehorn, stuck it into this knot-hole. Whether or not the aperture had been formed by the Boggart as a peep-hole to watch the motions of the family, I cannot pretend to say. Some thought it was, for it was called the Boggart's peep-hole; but others said that they had remembered it long before the shrill laugh of the Boggart was heard in the house. However this may have been, it is certain that the horn was ejected with surprising precision at the head of whoever put it there; and either in mirth or in anger the horn was darted forth with great velocity, and struck the poor child over the ear.

"There are few matters upon which parents feel more acutely than that of the maltreatment of their offspring; but time, that great soother of all things, at length familiarised this dangerous occurrence to every one at the farm, and that which at the first was regarded with the utmost terror, became a kind of amusement with the more thoughtless and daring of the family. Often was the horn slipped slyly into the hole, and in return it never failed to be flung at the head of some one, but most commonly at the person who placed it there. They were used to call this pastime, in the provincial dialect, 'laking wi't' Boggart;' that is playing with the Boggart. An old tailor, whom I but faintly remember, used to say that the horn was often 'pitched' at his head, and at the head of his apprentice, whilst seated here on the kitchen table, when they went their rounds to work, as is customary with country tailors. At length the goblin, not contented with flinging the horn, returned to his night persecutions. Heavy steps, as of a person in wooden clogs, were at first heard clattering down stairs in the dead hour of darkness; then the pewter and earthen dishes appeared to be dashed on the kitchen floor; though in the morning all remained uninjured on their respective shelves. The children generally were marked out as objects of dislike by their unearthly tormentor. The curtains of their beds would be violently pulled to and fro; then a heavy weight, as of a human being, would press them nigh to suffocation, from which it was impossible to escape. The night, instead of being the time for repose, was disturbed with screams and dreadful noises, and thus was the whole house alarmed night after night. Things could not long continue in this fashion; the farmer and his good dame resolved to leave a place where they could no longer expect rest or comfort; and George Cheetham was actually following, with his wife and family, the last load of furniture, when they were met by a neighbouring farmer, named John Marshall.

"'Well, Georgy, and so yo're leaving th' owd house at last?' said Marshall.

"'Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm in a manner forced to't, thou sees,' replied the other; 'for that weary Boggart torments us so, we can neither rest neet nor day for't. It seems like to have a malice again't young uns, an' ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on't, and so thou sees we're forc'd to flit like.'

"He had got thus far in his complaint, when, behold, a shrill voice, from a deep upright churn, the topmost utensil on the cart, called out, 'Ay, ay, neighbour, we're flitting, yo see.'

"'Od rot thee,' exclaimed George: 'if I'd known thou'd been flitting too, I wadn't ha' stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it's to no use, Mally,' he continued, turning to his wife, 'we may as weel turn back again to th' owd house, as be tormented in another not so convenient.'"

Thus endeth Crofton Croker's tradition of the "Boggart," or "Bar-gaist," which, according to the story, was long time a well-known supernatural pest of old Cheetham's farm-house, but whose principal lurking place was supposed to be in a gloomy nook of "Boggart Ho' Clough," or "Boggart Hole Clough," for the name adopted by the writer of the tradition appears to be derived from that superstitious belief. With respect to the exact origin of the name, however, I must entirely defer to those who know more about the matter than myself. The features of the story are, generically, the same as those of a thousand such like superstitious stories still told and believed in all the country parts of England--though perhaps more in the northern part of it than elsewhere. Almost every lad in Lancashire has, in his childhood, heard, either from his "reverend grannie," or from some less kin and less kind director of his young imagination, similar tales connected with old houses, and other haunts, in the neighbourhood of his own birthplace.

Among those who have noticed "Boggart Ho' Clough," is Mr. Samuel Bamford, well known as a poet, and a graphic prose writer upon the stormy political events of his earlier life, and upon whatever relates to the manners and customs of Lancashire. In describing matters of the latter kind, he has the advantage of being "native and to the manner born;" and still more specially so in everything connected with the social peculiarities of the locality of his birth. He was born at Middleton, about two miles from "Boggart Ho' Clough," and, as I said before, he resided for some years close to the clough itself. In his "Passages in the Life of a Radical," vol. 1. p. 130, there begins one of the raciest descriptions of Lancashire characteristics with which I am acquainted. The first part of this passage contains a descriptive account of "Plant," a country botanist; "Chirrup," a bird-catcher; and "Bangle," a youth "of an ardent temperament, but bashful," who was deeply in love with "a young beauty residing in the house of her father, who held a small milk-farm on the hill-side, not far from Old Birkle." It describes the meeting of the three in the lone cottage of Bangle's mother, near Grislehurst wood; the conversation that took place there; and the superstitious adventure they agreed upon, in order to deliver young Bangle from the hopelessness of his irresistible and unrequited love-thrall. "His modest approaches had not been noticed by the adored one; and, as she had danced with another youth at Bury fair, he imagined she was irrecoverably lost to him, and the persuasion had almost driven him melancholy. Doctors had been applied to, but he was no better; philters and charms had been tried to bring down the cold-hearted maid--but all in vain:--

"He sought her at the dawn of day; He sought her at the noonin'; He sought her when the evening gray Had brought the hollow moon in.

"He call'd her on the darkest night, With wizard spells to bind her: And when the stars arose in light, He wandered forth to find her.

"At length sorcerers and fortune-tellers were thought of, and 'Limping Billy,' a noted seer, residing at Radcliffe Bridge, having been consulted, said the lad had no chance of gaining power over the damsel, unless he could take Saint John's Fern seed; and if he could but secure three grains of that, he might bring to him whatever he wished, that walked, flew, or swam."

Such being the conditions laid down, and believed in by the three, they resolved to venture, together, on the taking of Saint John's Fern seed, with strict observance of the time and the cabalistic ceremonials enjoined by "Limping Billy," the seer, of Radcliffe Bridge. "Plant," the botanist, "knew where the finest clump of fern in the country grew;" and he undertook to accompany "Chirrup" and "Bangle" to the spot, at the time appointed, the eve of St. John the Baptist. The remainder of the passage describes "Boggart Ho' Clough," the spot in which St. John's Fern then grew in great abundance, and where the botanists of the district still find the plant; it describes, also, the fearful enterprise of the three at the witching hour of midnight, in search of the enchanted seed:--

"On the left hand, reader, as thou goest towards Manchester, ascending from Blackley, is a rather deep valley, green swarded, and embowered in plantations and older woods. A driving path, which thou enterest by a white gate hung on whale-jaw posts,[54] leads down to a grove of young trees, by a modern and substantial farm-house, with green shutters, sashed windows, and flowers peeping from the sills. A mantle of ivy climbs the wall, a garden is in front, and an orchard, redolent of bloom, and fruit in season, nods on the hill-top above. Here, at the time Plant was speaking of, stood a very ancient house, built partly of old-fashioned bricks, and partly of a timber frame, filled with raddlings and daub (wicker-work plastered with clay). It was a lone and desolate-looking house indeed; misty and fearful, even at noonday. It was known as 'Boggart-ho',' or 'Fyrin'-ho';' and the gorge in which it is situated, was, and is still, known as 'Boggart' or 'Fyrin-ho' Kloof,' 'the glen of the hall of spirits.' Such a place, might we suppose, had Milton in contemplation, when he wrote the passage of his inimitable poem:--

"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat, To earn his cream-bowl, duly set, When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thrash'd the corn Which ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down, the lubber fiend: And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire, his hairy strength; And cropful, out of door he flings, Ere the first cock his matin sings.

[54] Those somewhat remarkable posts have been removed of late years, and stout pillars of stone occupy their places.

"By the side of the house, and through the whole length of the valley, wends a sickly, tan-coloured rindle, which, issuing from the great White Moss, comes down, tinged with the colour of its parent swamp. Opposite the modern house, a forbidden road cuts through the plantation on the right towards Moston Lane. Another path leads behind the house, up precipitous banks, and through close bowers, to Booth Hall; and a third, the main one, proceeds along the kloof, by the side of the stream, and under sun-screening woods, until it forks into two roads: one a cattle-track, to 'The Bell,' in Moston; and the other a winding and precipitous footpath, to a farm-house at 'Wood-end,' where it gains the broad upland, and emerges into unshaded day.

"About half way up this kloof, is an open, cleared space of green and short sward: it is probably two hundred yards in length, by sixty in width; and passing along it from Blackley, a group of fine oaks appear, on a slight eminence, a little to the left. This part of the grove was, at the time we are concerned with, much more crowded with underwood than at present.[55] The bushes were then close and strong; fine sprouts of 'yerth-groon' hazel and ash were common as nuts; whilst a thick bush of bramble, wild rose, and holly, gave the spot the appearance of a place inclosed and set apart for mysterious concealment. Intermingled with these almost impervious barriers, where tufts of tall green fern, curling and bending gracefully; and a little separate from them and near the old oaks, might be observed a few fern clumps of a singular appearance; of a paler green than the others--with a flatter and a broader leaf--sticking up, rigid and expanded, like something stark with mute terror. These were 'Saint John's Fern;' and the finest of them was the one selected by Plant for the experiment now to be described.

[55] Those oaks have been felled, and the kloof is now comparatively denuded of timber; the underwood on the left side is nearly swept away. Sad inroads on the ominous gloom of the place.

"A little before midnight, on the eve of St. John, Plant, Chirrup, and Bangle, where at the whale-jaw gate before-mentioned; and, having slightly scanned each other, they proceeded, without speaking, until they had crossed the brook at a stepping-place, opposite the old Fyrin-ho'. The first word spoken was--'What hast thou?'

"'Mine is breawn an' roof,'

said Plant, exhibiting a brown earthern dish. 'What hast thou?' he then asked.

"'Mine is breet enough,'

said Chirrup, showing a pewter platter, and continued, 'What hast thou?'

"'Teed wi' web an' woof, Mine is deep enough,'

said Bangle, displaying a musty, dun skull, with the cap sawn off above the eyes, and left flapping like a lid by a piece of tanned scalp, which still adhered. The interior cavities had also been stuffed with moss and lined with clay, kneaded with blood from human veins, and the youth had secured the skull to his shoulders by a twine of three strands of unbleached flax, of undyed wool, and of woman's hair, from which also depended a raven black tress, which a wily crone had procured from the maid he sought to obtain.

"'That will do,'

said a voice, in a half whisper, from one of the low bushes they were passing. Plant and Chirrup paused; but Bangle, who had evidently his heart on the accomplishment of the undertaking, said, 'Forward!--if we turn, now a spirit has spoken, we are lost. Come on!' and they went forward.

"A silence, like that of death, was around them as they entered on the opening platting. Nothing moved either in tree or brake. Through a space in the foliage, the stars were seen pale in heaven, and a crooked moon hung in a bit of blue amid motionless clouds. All was still and breathless, as if earth, heaven, and the elements, were aghast. Anything would have been preferable to that unnatural stillness and silence--the hoot of the night owl, the larum of the pit sparrow, the moan of the wind, the toll of a death-bell, or the howl of a ban-dog, would, inasmuch as they are things of this world, have been welcome sounds amid that horrid pause. But no sound came and no object moved.

"Gasping, and with cold sweat oozing on his brow, Plant recollected that they were to shake the fern with a forked rod of witch hazel, and by no means must touch it with their hands, and he asked, in a whisper, if the others had brought one. Both said they had forgotten, and Chirrup said they had better never have come; but Plant drew his knife, and stepping into a moonlighted bush, soon returned with what was wanted, and they went forward.

"The green knowe, the old oaks, the encircled space, and the fern, were now approached; the latter stiff and erect in a gleamy light.

"'Is it deep neet?' said Bangle.

"'It is,' said Plant.

The star that bids the shepherd fold, Now the top of heaven doth hold.

"And they drew near. All was still and motionless.

"Plant knelt on one knee, and held his dish under the fern.

"Chirrup held his broad plate next below, and

"Bangle knelt, and rested the skull directly under both on the green sod; the lid being up.

"Plant said,--

'Good St John, this seed we crave, We have dared; shall we have?'

"A voice responded:--

'Now the moon is downward starting, Moon and stars are all departing; Quick, quick; shake, shake; He whose heart shall soonest break, Let him take.'

"They looked, and perceived by a glance that a venerable form, in a loose robe, was near them.

"Darkness came down like a swoop. The fern was shaken, the upper dish flew into pieces--the pewter one melted; the skull emitted a cry, and eyes glared in its sockets; lights broke--beautiful children were seen walking in their holiday clothes, and graceful female forms sung mournful and enchanting airs.

"The men stood terrified, and fascinated; and Bangle, gazing, bade, 'God bless 'em.' A crash followed as if the whole of the timber in the kloof was being splintered and torn up; strange and horrid forms appeared from the thickets; the men ran as if sped on the wind--they separated, and lost each other. Plant ran towards the old house, and there, leaping the brook, he cast a glance behind him, and saw terrific shapes--some beastly, some part human, and some hellish, gnashing their teeth, and howling, and uttering the most fearful and mournful tones, as if wishful to follow him but unable to do so.

"In an agony of terror he arrived at home, not knowing how he got there. He was, during several days, in a state bordering on unconsciousness; and, when he recovered, he learned that Chirrup was found on the White Moss, raving mad, and chasing the wild birds. As for poor Bangle, he found his way home over hedge and ditch, running with supernatural and fearful speed--the skull's eyes glaring at his back, and the nether jaw grinning and jabbering frightful and unintelligible sounds. He had preserved the seed, however, and, having taken it from the skull, he buried the latter at the cross road from whence he had taken it. He then carried the spell out, and his proud love stood one night by his bed-side in tears. But he had done too much for human nature--in three months after she followed his corpse, a real mourner, to the grave!

"Such was the description my fellow-prisoner gave of what occurred in the only trial he ever made with St John's Fern seed. He was full of old and quaint narratives, and of superstitious lore, and often would beguile time by recounting them. Poor fellow! a mysterious fate hung over him also."

This description of "Boggart Ho' Clough," with its dramatic embodiment of one of our strong local superstitions, is all the more interesting from the pen of one who knew the place and the people so well. I know no other writer who is so able to portray the distinctive characteristics of the people of South Lancashire as Samuel Bamford.

It is now some years since I visited the scene of the foregoing traditions. At that time I was wholly unacquainted with the last of these legends, and I knew little more about "Boggart Ho' Clough," in any way, than its name indicates. I sought the place, then, solely on account of its natural attractions. Feeling curious, however, respecting the import of its name, and dimly remembering Roby's tradition, I made some inquiry in the neighbourhood, and found that, although some attributed the name to the superstitious credulity of the native people, there was one gentleman who nearly destroyed that theory in my mind at the time, by saying that, a short time previous, he had dined with a lawyer who informed him, in the course of a conversation upon the same subject, that he had recently been at a loss how to describe the place in question, having to prepare some notices to be served on trespassers; and, on referring to the title-deeds of the property, he found that a family of the name of "Bowker" had formerly occupied a residence situated in the clough, and that their dwelling was designated "Bowker's Hall." This he adopted as the origin of the name, and described it accordingly. But the testimony of every writer who notices the spot, especially those best acquainted with it, inclines to the other derivation.

But the locality has other points of interest, besides this romantic nook, and the tales of glamour connected with it. In it there is many a boggart story, brought down from the past, many a spot of fearful repute among native people. Apart from all these things, the chapelry of Blackley is enriched with historic associations well worth remembering, and it contains some interesting relics of the ancient manner of life there. In former times the chapelry had in it several fine old halls: Booth Hall, Nuthurst Hall, Lightbowne Hall, Hough Hall, Crumpsall Hall, and Blackley Hall. Some of these still remain. Some of them have been the homes or the birthplaces of men of eminence in their day--eminent for worth as well as station--among whom there is more than one who has left a long trail of honourable recollections behind him. Such men were Humphrey Chetham, Bishop Oldham, and others. Bradford the martyr, also, is said to have resided in this township. William Chadderton, D.D., Bishop of Chester, and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was born at Nuthurst Hall, about the year 1540. George Clarke, the founder of the charity which bears his name, and one of Fuller's Worthies, resided in Crumpsall. The following particulars respecting the district and its notabilities I glean from the recently-published "History of the Ancient Chapel of Blackley," by the Rev. John Booker, B.A., of Magdalene College, Cambridge, curate of Prestwich. First, with respect to the ancient state of Blackley, in the survey of Manchester, as taken in the 15th Edward II. (1322), and preserved by Kuerden,[56] the following official notice of the township occurs:--"The park of Blakeley is worth, in pannage, aëry of eagles, herons and hawks, honey-bees, mineral earths, ashes, and other issues, fifty-three shillings and fourpence. The vesture of oaks, with the whole coverture, is worth two hundred marks [£133. 6s. 8d.] in the gross. It contains seven miles in circumference, together with two deer-leaps, of the king's grant." This short but significant passage is sufficient to give, the reader a glimpse of the appearance of Blackley township five hundred years ago. From the same authority, we learn that Blackley park (seven miles in circumference) was, at that time, surrounded and fenced in by a wooden paling. "The two 'deer-leaps' were probably cloughs or ravines, of which the most remarkable is the 'Boggart Hole Clough,' a long cleft or dell between two rocks, the sides of which rise abruptly and leave a narrow pass, widening a little here and there, through which flows a small brook. This is the last stronghold of Blackley's ancient characteristic features, where rural tranquility still reigns, free from the bustle and turmoil of mercantile industry around it."

[56] Kuerden's MS., fol. 274, Chetham Library.

The following particulars respecting the etymology of the name "Blackley," will not be unacceptable to students of language:--"Its etymology is yet a disputed point, owing to the various significations of the Anglo-Saxon word, _blac_, _blæc_, _bleac_, which means not only _black_, _dark_, _opaque_, and even _gloomy_, but also _pale_, _faded_, _pallid_, from 'blæcan,' to bleach or make white. And, as if these opposite meanings were not sufficiently perplexing, two other forms present themselves, one of which means _bleak_, _cold_, _bare_, and the other _yellow_; the latter syllable in the name, _ley_, _legh_, _leag_, or _leah_, signifying a _field_ or place of _pasture_." On this point, Whittaker says, in his "History of Manchester," "The Saxon _blac_, _black_, or _blake_, frequently imports the deep gloom of trees; hence we have so many places distinguished by the epithet in England, where no circumstances of soil and no peculiarities of water give occasion to it, as the villages of Blackburn and Blackrode in Lancashire, Blakeley-hurst, near Wigan, and our own Blackley, near Manchester; and the woods of the last were even seven miles in circuit as late as the fourteenth century.

"Leland, who wrote about the year 1538, bears testimony to the unaltered aspect of Blackley, under the influence of cultivation, and to the changes incident to the disafforesting of its ancient woodlands. He says:--'Wild bores, bulles, and falcons, bredde in times past at Blakele, now for lack of woode the blow-shoppes decay there.'[57]

"Blackley had its resident minister as early as the reign of Edward VI., in the person of Father Travis, a name handed down to us in the pages of Fox and Strype. Travis was the friend and correspondent of Bradford the martyr. In the succeeding reign he suffered banishment for his Protestant principles, and his place was probably supplied by a papist."

[57] Leland's "Itinerary" (Hearne's edit.), vol. vii. p. 42.

The site upon which, in 1815, stood the old hall of Blackley, is now occupied by a print-shop. Blackley Hall "was a spacious black-and-white half-timbered mansion, in the post and petrel style, and was situated near to the junction of the lane leading to the chapel and the Manchester and Rochdale turnpike road. It was a structure of considerable antiquity, and consisted of a centre and two projecting wings--an arrangement frequently met with in the ancient manor-houses of this county--and bore evidence of having been erected at two periods.

"Like most other houses of similar pretensions and antiquity, it was not without its traditionary legends, and the _boggart_ of Blackley Hall was as well known as Blackley Hall itself. In the stillness of the night it would steal from room to room, and carry off the bedclothes from the couches of the sleeping, but now thoroughly aroused and discomfited inmates."[58]

[58] The following note is attached to this passage in Mr. Booker's volume:--"The annals of Blackley bear ample testimony to the superstition of its inhabitants. It has had its nine days' wonder at every period of its history. Hollingworth, writing of that age of portents and prodigies which succeeded the Reformation, says:--'In Blackley, neere Manchester, in one John Pendleton's ground, as one was reaping, the corne being cut seemed to bleede; drops fell out of it like to bloud; multitudes of people went to see it: and the straws thereof, though of a kindly colour without, were within reddish, and as it were bloudy!' Boggart-hole Clough, too, was another favourite haunt of ghostly visitants, the legend of which has been perpetuated by Mr. Roby in his "Traditions of Lancashire," vol. 2, pp. 295, 301. Nor has it ceased in our day: in 1852 one of its inhabitants imperilled the safety of his family and neighbours, by undermining the walls of his cottage, in his efforts to discover the hidden cause of some mysterious noise that had disturbed him."

The township of Crumpsall bounds Blackley on the north side, and is divided from it by the lively but now turbid little river Irk, or Iwrke, or Irke, which means "Roebuck." "From time immemorial, for ecclesiastical purposes, Crumpsall has been associated with Blackley." The present Crumpsall Hall stands on the north side of the Irk, about a mile and a half from "Boggart Ho' Clough." The earlier orthography of the name was "Crumeshall, or Curmeshall. For its derivation we are referred to the Anglo-Saxon, the final syllable 'sal' signifying in that language a hall or place of entertainment, of which hospitable abode the Saxon chief, whose name the first syllable indicates, was the early proprietor. Thus, too, Ordsall in the same parish." Here, in later days, Humphrey Chetham was born, at Crumpsall old hall. The author of the "History of the Ancient Chapel of Blackley," from whose