After spending a few days in the town, I set out for Milnrow, one fine afternoon. The road leads by the "Railway Inn," near the station. The hay was mostly gathered in, but the smell of it still lingered on the meadows, and perfumed the wind, which sung a low melody among the leaves of the hedges. Along the vale of the Roch, to the left, lay a succession of manufacturing villages, with innumerable mills, collieries, farmsteads, mansions, and cottages, clustering in the valley, and running up into the hills in all directions, from Rochdale to Littleborough, a distance of three miles. As I went on I was reminded of "wimberry-time," by meeting knots of flaxen-headed lads and lasses from the moors, with their baskets filled, and mouths all stained with the juice of that delicious moorland fruit. There are many pleasant customs in vogue here at this season. The country-folk generally know something of local botany; and gather in a stock of medicinal herbs to dry, for use throughout the year. There is still some "spo'in'" at the mineral springs in the hills. Whether these springs are really remarkable for peculiar mineral virtues, or what these peculiar virtues are, I am not prepared to say; but it is certain that many of the inhabitants of this district firmly believe in their medicinal qualities, and, at set seasons of the year, go forth to visit these springs, in jovial companies, to drink "spo wayter." Some go with great faith in the virtues of the water, and, having drunk well of it, they will sometimes fill a bottle with it, and ramble back to their houses, gathering on their way edible herbs, such as "payshun docks," and "green-sauce," or "a burn o' nettles," to put in their broth, and, of which, they also make a wholesome "yarb-puddin'," mixed with meal; or they scour the hill-sides in search of "mountain flax," a "capital yarb for a cowd;" and for the herb called "tormental," which, I have heard them say, grows oftenest "abeawt th' edge o' th' singing layrock neest;" or they will call upon some country botanist to beg a handful of "Solomon's seal," to "cure black e'en wi'." But some go to these springs mainly for the sake of a pleasant stroll and a quiet feast. One of the most noted of these "spo'in'" haunts is "Blue Pots Spring," situated upon a lofty moorland, at the head of a green glen, called "Long Clough," about three miles from the village of Littleborough. The ancient Lancashire festival of "Rushbearing," and the hay-harvest, fall together, in the month of August; and make it a pleasant time of the year to the folk of the neighbourhood. At about a mile on the road to Milnrow, the highway passes close by a green dingle, called "Th' Gentlewoman's Nook," which is someway connected with the unfortunate fate of a lady, once belonging to an influential family, near Milnrow. Some of the country people yet believe that the place is haunted; and, when forced to pass it after dark has come on, they steal fearfully and hastily by.
About a mile on the road stands Belfield Hall, on the site of an ancient house, formerly belonging to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. It is a large old building, belonging to the Townley family. The estate has been much improved by its present occupant, and makes a pleasant picture in the eye from the top of a dinge in the road, at the foot of which a by-path leads up to the old village of Newbold, on the brow of a green bank, at the right-hand side of the highway. I stood there a minute, and tried to plant again the old woods, that must have been thick there, when the squirrel leaped from tree to tree, from Castletor Hall to Buckley Wood. I was trying to shape in imagination what the place looked like in the old time, when the first rude hall was built upon the spot, and the country around was a lonesome tract, shrouded by primeval trees, when a special train went snorting by the back of the hall, and shivered my delicate endeavour to atoms. I sighed involuntarily; but bethinking me how imagination clothes all we are leaving behind in a drapery that veils many of its rough realities, I went my way, thankful for things as they are. A little further on, Fir Grove bridge crosses the Rochdale canal, and commands a better view of the surrounding country. I rested here a little while, and looked back upon the spot which is for ever dear to my remembrance. The vale of the Roch lay smiling before me, and the wide-stretching circle of dark hills closed in the landscape, on all sides, except the south-west. Two weavers were lounging on the bridge, bareheaded, and in their working gear, with stocking-legs drawn on their arms. They had come out of the looms to spend their "baggin-time" in the open air, and were humming one of their favourite songs:—
Hey Hal o' Nabs, an Sam, an Sue,
Hey Jonathan, art thea theer too,
We're o' alike, there's nought to do,
So bring a quart afore us.
Aw're at Tinker's gardens yester noon,
An' what aw see'd aw'll tell yo soon,
In a bran new sung; it's to th' owd tune
Yo'st ha't iv yo'n join chorus.
Fal, lal, de ral.
At the door of the Fir Grove ale-house, a lot of raw-boned young fellows were talking with rude emphasis about the exploits of a fighting-cock of great local renown, known by the bland sobriquet of "Crash-Bwons." The theme was exciting, and in the course of it they gesticulated with great vehemence, and, in their own phrase, "swore like horse-swappers." Some were colliers, and sat on the ground, in that peculiar squat, with the knees up to a level with the chin, which is a favourite resting-attitude with them. At slack times they like to sit thus by the road side, and exchange cracks over their ale, amusing themselves meanwhile by trying the wit and temper of every passer by. These humourous road-side commentators are, generally, the roughest country lads of the neighbourhood, who have no dislike to anybody willing to accommodate them with a tough battle; for they, like the better regulated portion of the inhabitants of the district, are hardy, bold, and independent; and, while their manners are open and blunt, their training and amusements are very rough.
I was now approaching Milnrow; and, here and there, a tenter-field ribbed the landscape with lines of woollen webs, hung upon the hooks to dry. Severe laws were anciently enacted for the protection of goods thus necessarily exposed. Depredations on such property were punished after the manner of that savage old "Maiden" with the thin lip, who stood so long on the "Gibbet Hill," at Halifax, kissing evil-doers out of the world. Much of the famous Rochdale flannel is still woven by the country people here, in the old-fashioned, independent way, at their own homes, as the traveller will see by "stretchers," which are used for drying their warps upon, so frequently standing at the doors of the roomy dwelling-houses near the road. From the head of the brow which leads down into the village, Milnrow chapel is full in view on a green hill-side to the left, overlooking the centre of the busy little hamlet. It is a bald-looking building from the distance, having more the appearance of a little square factory than a church. Lower down the same green eminence, which slopes to the edge of the little river Beal, stands the pleasant and tasteful, but modest residence of the incumbent of Milnrow, the Rev. Francis Robert Raines, honorary canon of Manchester, a notable archæologist and historian; much beloved by the people of the locality.
There are old people still living in Milnrow, who were taught to read and write, and "do sums" in Tim Bobbin's school; yet, the majority of the inhabitants seem unacquainted with his residence. I had myself been misled respecting it; but having obtained correct information, and a reference from a friend in Rochdale to an old relative of his who lived in the veritable cottage of renowned Tim, I set about inquiring for him. As I entered the village, I met a sturdy, good-looking woman, with a chocolate-coloured silk kerchief tied over her snowy cap, in that graceful way which is known all over the country-side as a "Mildro Bonnet." She stopt me and said, "Meastur, hea fur han yo com'd?" "From Rochdale." "Han yo sin aught ov a felley wi breeches on, an' rayther forrud, upo' th' gate, between an' th' Fir Grove?" I told her I had not; and I then inquired for Scholefield that lived in Tim Bobbin's cottage. She reckoned up all the people she knew of that name, but none of them answering the description, I went on my way. I next asked a tall woollen-weaver, who was striding up the street with his shuttle to the mending. Scratching his head, and looking thoughtfully round among the houses, he said, "Scwofil? Aw know no Scwofils, but thoose at th' Tim Bobbin aleheawse; yodd'n better ash (ask) theer." Stepping over to the Tim Bobbin inn, Mrs. Schofield described to me the situation of Tim's cottage, near the bridge. Retracing my steps towards the place, I went into the house of an old acquaintance of my childhood. On the strength of a dim remembrance of my features, he invited me to sit down, and share the meal just made ready for the family. "Come, poo a cheer up," said he, "an' need no moo lathein'."[8] After we had finished, he said, "Neaw, win yd have a reech o' bacco? Mally, reytch us some pipes, an th' pot out o'th nook. Let's see, who's lad are yo, sen yo? for aw welly forgetten, bith mass." After a fruitless attempt at enlightening him thereon in ordinary English, I took to the dialect, and in the country fashion described my genealogy, on the mother's side. I was instantly comprehended; for he stopt me short with—"Whau then, aw'll be sunken iv yo are not gron'son to 'Billy, wi' th' pipes, at th' Biggins.'" "Yo han it neaw," said I. "Eh," replied he, "aw knowed him as weel as aw knew my own feythur! He're a terrible chap for music, an' sich like; an' he used to letter grave-stones, an' do mason-wark. Eh, aw've bin to mony a orrytory wi' Owd Billy. Why,—let's see—Owd Wesley preytched at his heawse, i' Wardle fowd once't.[9] An' han yo some relations i' th' Mildro, then?" I told him my errand, and inquired for Scholefield, who lived in Tim Bobbin's cottage. As he pondered, and turned the name over in his mind, one of his lads shouted out, "By th' mon, feyther, it's 'Owd Mahogany,' Aw think he's code (called) Scwofil, an' he lives i'th garden at th' botham o'th bonk, by th' waytur side." It was generally agreed that this was the place, so I parted with my friends and went towards it. The old man came out without his hat, a short distance, to set me right. After bidding me a hearty "good neet," he turned round as he walked away, and shouted out, "Neaw tay care yo coan, th' next time yo com'n thiz gate, an' wi'n have a gradely do."
About twenty yards from the west end of the little stone bridge that spans the river, a lane leads, between the ends of the dwelling houses, down to the water side. There, still sweetly secluded, stands the quaint, substantial cottage of John Collier, in its old garden by the edge of the Beal, which, flowing through the fields in front, towards the cottage, is there dammed up into a reservoir for the use of the mill close by, and then tumbling over in a noisy little fall under the garden edge, goes shouting and frolicking along the north-east side of it, over water-worn rocks, and under the bridge, till the cadence dies away in a low murmur, beyond, where the bed of the stream gets smoother. Lifting the latch, I walked through the garden, to the cottage, where I found "Owd Mahogany" and his maiden sister, two plain, clean, substantial working-people, who were sitting in the low-roofed, but otherwise roomy apartment in front, used as a kitchen. They entered heartily into the purpose of my visit, and showed me everything about the house with a genial pride. What made the matter more interesting was the fact, that "Owd Mahogany" had been, when a lad, a pupil of Collier's. The house was built expressly for Tim, by his father-in-law; and the uncommon thickness of the walls, the number and arrangement of the rooms, and the remains of a fine old oak staircase, showed that more than usual care and expense had been bestowed upon it. As we went through the rooms on the ground-floor, my ancient guide gave me a good deal of anecdote connected with each. Pointing to a clean, cold, whitewashed cell, with a great flag table in it, and a grid-window at one end, he said, "This wur his buttery, wheer he kept pullen,[10] an gam, an sich like; for thir no mon i' Rachdaw parish liv't betther nor Owd Tim, nor moor like a gentleman; nor one at had moor friends, gentle an simple. Th' Teawnlo's took'n to him fearfully, an thir'n olez comin' to see him; or sendin' him presents o' some mak'." He next showed me the parlour where he used to write and receive company. A little oblong room, low in the roof, and dimly lighted by a small window from the garden. Tim used to keep this retiring sanctum tastefully adorned with the flowers of each season, and one might have eaten his dinner off the floor in his time. In the garden he pointed out the corner where Tim had a roomy green arbor, with a smooth stone table in the middle, on which lay his books, his flute, or his meals, as he was in the mood. He would stretch himself out here, and muse for hours together. The lads used to bring their tasks from the school behind the house, to this arbor, for Tim to examine. He had a green shaded walk from the school into his garden. When in the school, or about the house, he wore a silk velvet skull-cap. The famous radical, William Cobbett, used to wear a similar one, occasionally; and I have heard those who have seen both in this trim, say that the likeness of the two men was then singularly striking. "Owd Mahogany" having now shown and told me many interesting things respecting Tim's house and habits, entered into a hearty eulogy upon his character as a man and a schoolmaster. "He're a fine, straight-forrud mon, wi' no maffle abeawt him; for o' his quare, cranky ways." As an author, he thought him "Th' fine'st writer at Englan' bred, at that time o' th' day." Of his caligraphy, too, he seemed particularly proud, for he declared that "Tim could write a clear print hond, as smo' as smithy smudge," He finished by saying, that he saw him carried out of the door-way we were standing in, to his grave.
At the edge of dark, I bade adieu to Tim's cottage, and the comfortable old couple that live in it. As I looked back from the garden-gate, the house wore a plaintive aspect, in my imagination; as if it was thinking of its fine old tenant. Having heard that there was something uncommon to be learnt of him at the Tim Bobbin Inn, I went there again. It is the largest and most respectable public-house in the village, kept in a fine state of homely comfort by a motherly old widow. I found that she could tell me something of the quaint schoolmaster and his wife "Mary," who, as she said, "helped to bring her into th' world." She brought out a folio volume of engravings from designs by Tim, with many pieces of prose and verse of his, in engraved fac-simile of his hand-writing. The book was bound in dark morocco, with the author's name on the side, in gold. I turned it over with pleasure, for there were things in it not found in any edition of his works. The landlady shows this book with some pride to Tim's admirers; by some she had been offered large sums of money for it; and once a party of curious visitors had well-nigh carried it off by stealth in their carriage, after making fruitless offers of purchase; but the plan was detected in time, and the treasure restored to its proper custody. I read in it one of his addresses to his subscribers, in which he says of himself: "He's Lancashire born; and, by the by, all his acquaintance agree, his wife not excepted, that he's an odd-fellow.... In the reign of Queen Anne he was a boy, and one of the nine children of a poor curate in Lancashire, whose stipend never amounted to thirty pounds a-year, and consequently the family must feel the iron teeth of penury with a witness. These indeed were sometimes blunted by the charitable disposition of the good rector (the Rev. Mr. H.——, of W—— n): so this T. B. lived as some other boys did, content with water-pottage, buttermilk, and jannock, till he was between thirteen and fourteen years of age, when Providence began to smile on him in his advancement to a pair of Dutch looms, when he met with treacle to his pottage, and sometimes a little in his buttermilk, or spread on his jannock. However, the reflections of his father's circumstances (which now and then start up and still edge his teeth) make him believe that Pluralists are no good Christians; that he who will accept of two or more places of one hundred a-year, would not say I have enough, though he was Pope Clement, Urban, or Boniface,—could affirm himself infallible, and offer his toe to kings: that the unequal distribution of Church emoluments is as great a grievance in the ecclesiastic, as undeserved pensions and places are in the state; both of which, he presumes to prophesy, will prove canker-worms at the roots of those succulent plants, and in a few years cause leaf and branch to shrivel up, and dry them to tinder." The spirit of this passage seems the natural growth, in such a mind as his, of the curriculum of study in the hard college of Tim's early days. In the thrifty home of the poor Lancashire curate, though harrowed by "the iron teeth of penury," Tim inherited riches that wealth cannot buy. Under the tuition of a good father, who could study his reflective and susceptible mind, and teach him many excellent things; together with that hard struggle to keep the wolf from the door of his childhood, which pressed upon his thoughts, he grew up contemplative, self-reliant, and manly, on oatmeal porridge, and jannock, with a little treacle for a god-send. His feelings were deepened, and his natural love of independence strengthened there, with that hatred of all kinds of injustice, which flashes through the rich humour and genial kindness of his nature,—for nature was strong in him, and he relished her realities. Poverty is not pleasant, yet the world has more to thank poverty for than it dreams of. With honourable pride he fought his way to a pair of Dutch looms, where he learned to win his jannock and treacle by honest weaving. Subsequently he endeavoured to support himself honourably, by pursuits no less useful, but more congenial to the bias of his faculties; but, to the last, his heart's desire was less to live in external plenty and precedence among men, than to live conscientiously, in the sweet relations of honourable independence in the world. This feeling was strong in him, and gives dignity to his character. As a politician, John Collier was considerably ahead of the time he lived in, and especially of the simple, slow-minded race of people dwelling, then, in that remote nook of Lancashire, at the foot of Blackstone Edge. Among such people, and in such a time, he spoke and wrote things, which few men dared to write and speak. He spoke, too, in a way which was as independent and pithy as it was quaintly-expressive. His words, like his actions, stood upon their own feet, and looked up. Perhaps, if he had been a man of a drier nature,—of less genial and attractive genius than he was,—he might have had to suffer more for the enunciation of truths, and the recognition of principles which were unfashionable in those days. But Collier was not only a man of considerable valour and insight, with a manly mind and temper, but he was also genial and humourous, as he was earnest and honest. He was an eminently human-hearted man, who abhorred all kinds of cant and seeming. His life was a greater honour to him even than his quaint pencil, or his pen; and the memory of his sayings and doings will be long and affectionately cherished, at least, by Lancashire men.
Eh: Whoo-who-whoo! What wofo wark!
He's laft um aw, to lie i' th' dark.
The following brief memoir, written by his friend and patron, Richard Townley, Esq., of Belfield Hall, near Milnrow, for insertion in Dr. Aiken's "History of the Environs of Manchester," contains the best and completest account of his life and character, which has yet appeared:—