Th Barrel Organ | Page 2

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 th' owd chap?"
"Eh," replied the old woman; "it's noan time for him yet. But I see," continued she, looking up at