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!
