Th Barrel Organ | Page 2

High above the green valley, on
both sides, the moorlands stretched away in billowy wildernesses--dark,
bleak, and almost soundless, save where the wind harped his wild
anthem upon the heathery waste, and where roaring streams filled the
lonely cloughs with drowsy uproar. It was a striking scene, and it was
an impressive hour. The bold, round, flat-topped height of Musbury
Tor stood gloomily proud, on the opposite side, girdled off from the
rest of the hills by a green vale. The lofty outlines of Aviside and
Holcombe were glowing with the gorgeous hues of a cloudless October
sunset. Along those wild ridges the soldiers of ancient Rome marched
from Manchester to Preston, when boars and wolves ranged the woods
and thickets of the Irwell valley. The stream is now lined all the way
with busy populations, and evidences of great wealth and enterprise.
But the spot from which I looked down upon it was still naturally wild.
The hand of man had left no mark there, except the grass-grown
pack-horse road. There was no sound nor sign of life immediately
around me.
The wind was cold, and daylight was dying down. It was getting too
near dark to go by the moor tops, so I made off towards a cottage in the
next clough, where an old quarry-man lived, called "Jone o'Twilter's."
The pack-horse road led by the place. Once there, I knew that I could
spend a pleasant hour with the old folk, and, after that, be directed by a
short cut down to the great highway in the valley, from whence an
hour's walk would bring me near home. I found the place easily, for I
had been there in summer. It was a substantial stone-built cottage, or
little farm-house, with mullioned windows. A stone-seated porch,
white-washed inside, shaded the entrance; and there was a little barn
and a shippon, or cow-house attached. By the by, that word "shippon,"
must have been originally "sheep-pen." The house nestled deep in the
clough, upon a shelf of green land, near the moorland stream. On a rude

ornamental stone, above the threshold of the porch, the date of the
building was quaintly carved, "1696," with the initials, "J. S.," and then,
a little lower down, and partly between these, the letter "P.," as if
intended for "John and Sarah Pilkington." On the lower slope of the hill,
immediately in front of the house there was a kind of kitchen garden,
well stocked, and in very fair order. Above the garden, the wild
moorland rose steeply up, marked with wandering sheep tracts. From
the back of the house, a little flower garden sloped away to the edge of
a rocky back. The moorland stream rushed wildly along its narrow
channel, a few yards below; and, viewed from the garden wall, at the
edge of the bank, it was a weird bit of stream scenery. The water rushed
and roared here; there it played a thousand pranks; and there, again, it
was full of graceful eddies; gliding away at last over the smooth lip of a
worn rock, a few yards lower down. A kind of green gloom pervaded
the watery chasm, caused by the thick shade of trees overspreading
from the opposite bank. It was a spot that a painter might have chosen
for "The Kelpie's Home."
The cottage door was open; and I guessed by the silence inside that old
"Jone" had not reached home. His wife, Nanny, was a hale and cheerful
woman, with a fastidious love of cleanliness, and order, and quietness,
too, for she was more than seventy years of age. I found her knitting,
and slowly swaying her portly form to and fro in a shiny old-fashioned
chair, by the fireside. The carved oak clock-case in the corner was as
bright as a mirror; and the solemn, authoritative ticking of the ancient
time-marker was the loudest sound in the house. But the softened roar
of the stream outside filled all the place, steeping the senses in a
drowsy spell. At the end of a long table under the front window, sat
Nanny's granddaughter, a rosy, round-faced lass, about twelve years old.
She was turning over the pictures in a well-thumbed copy of
"Culpepper's Herbal." She smiled, and shut the book, but seemed
unable to speak; as if the poppied enchantment that wrapt the spot had
subdued her young spirit to a silence which she could not break. I do
not wonder that old superstitions linger in such nooks as that. Life there
is like bathing in dreams. But I saw that they had heard me coming; and
when I stopt in the doorway, the old woman broke the charm by saying,
"Nay sure! What; han yo getten thus far? Come in, pray yo."
"Well, Nanny," said I; "where's