Читать книгу: «Lancashire Sketches», страница 14

 
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:—