This is Mrs. Gaskell’s first attempt at portraying the bygone life of the little country town of Knutsford, which she has idealised in her stories under six different names, and immortalised as Cranford. The beautiful description of the old Cheshire town is true of Knutsford to-day, for fortunately “the hand of the builder” has not yet been allowed to spoil its quaint picturesque beauty.
I was too lazy to do much that evening, and sat in the little bow-window which projected over Jocelyn’s shop, looking up and down the street. Duncombe calls itself a town, but I should call it a village. Really, looking from Jocelyn’s, it is a very picturesque place. The houses are anything but regular; they may be mean in their details; but altogether they look well; they have not that flat unrelieved front, which many towns of far more pretensions present. Here and there a bow-window—every now and then a gable, cutting up against the sky—occasionally a projecting upper story—throws good effect of light and shadow along the street; and they have a queer fashion of their own of colouring the whitewash of some of the houses with a sort of pink blotting-paper tinge, more like the stone of which Mayence is built than anything else. It may be very bad taste, but to my mind it gives a rich warmth to the colouring. Then, here and there a dwelling house has a court in front, with a grass-plot on each side of the flagged walk, and a large tree or two—limes or horse-chestnuts—which send their great projecting upper branches over into the street, making round dry places of shelter on the pavement in the times of summer showers.
A Race for Life Across the Quicksands in Morecambe Bay
From “The Sexton’s Hero,” Howitt’s Journal, 1847
The complete story was reprinted together with Christmas Storms and Sunshine in a little booklet and presented by Mrs. Gaskell as a contribution to a fête held in Macclesfield for the benefit of the Public Baths and Wash-houses in 1850. A copy of the booklet was sold for two guineas a few years ago. A railway bridge now spans this treacherous part of Morecambe bay.
Well! we borrowed a shandry, and harnessed my old grey mare, as I used in th’ cart, and set off as grand as King George across the sands about three o’clock, for you see it were high-water about twelve, and we’d to go and come back same tide, as Letty could not leave her baby for long. It were a merry afternoon were that; last time I ever saw Letty laugh heartily; and, for that matter, last time I ever laughed downright hearty myself. The latest crossing-time fell about nine o’clock, and we were late at starting. Clocks were wrong; and we’d a piece of work chasing a pig father had given Letty to take home; we bagged him at last, and he screeched and screeched in the back part o’ th’ shandry, and we laughed and they laughed; and in the midst of all the merriment the sun set, and that sobered us a bit, for then we knew what time it was. I whipped the old mare, but she was a deal beener than she was in the morning, and would neither go quick up nor down the brows, and they’ve not a few ’twixt Kellet and the shore. On the sands it were worse. They were very heavy, for the fresh had come down after the rains we’d had. Lord! how I did whip the poor mare, to make the most of the red light as yet lasted. You, maybe, don’t know the sands, gentlemen! From Bolton side, where we started from, it is better than six mile to Cart Lane, and two channels to cross, let alone holes and quicksands. At the second channel from us the guide waits, all during crossing-time from sunrise to sunset; but for the three hours on each side high-water he’s not there, in course. He stays after sunset if he’s forespoken, not else. So now you know where we were that awful night. For we’d crossed the first channel about two mile, and it were growing darker and darker above and around us, all but one red line of light above the hills, when we came to a hollow (for all the sands look so flat, there’s many a hollow in them where you lose all sight of the shore). We were longer than we should ha’ been in crossing the hollow, the sand was so quick; and when we came up again, there, against the blackness, was the white line of the rushing tide coming up the bay! It looked not a mile from us; and when the wind blows up the bay it comes swifter than a galloping horse. “Lord help us!” said I; and then I were sorry I’d spoken, to frighten Letty; but the words were crushed out of my heart by the terror. I felt her shiver up by my side and clutch my coat. And as if the pig (as had screeched himself hoarse some time ago) had found out the danger we were all in, he took to squealing again, enough to bewilder any man. I cursed him between my teeth for his noise; and yet it was God’s answer to my prayer, blind sinner as I was. Ay! you may smile, sir, but God can work through many a scornful thing, if need be.
By this time the mare was all in a lather, and trembling and panting, as if in mortal fright; for, though we were on the last bank afore the second channel, the water was gathering up her legs; and she so tired out! When we came close to the channel she stood still, and not all my flogging could get her to stir; she fairly groaned aloud, and shook in a terrible quaking way. Till now Letty had not spoken; only held my coat tightly. I heard her say something, and bent down my head.
“I think, John—I think—I shall never see baby again!”
And then she sent up such a cry—so loud, and shrill, and pitiful! It fairly maddened me. I pulled out my knife to spur on the old mare, that it might end one way or the other, for the water was stealing sullenly up to the very axle-tree, let alone the white waves that knew no mercy in their steady advance. That one quarter of an hour, sir, seemed as long as all my life since. Thoughts and fancies, and dreams and memory ran into each other. The mist, the heavy mist, that was like a ghastly curtain, shutting us in for death, seemed to bring with it the scents of the flowers that grew around our own threshold; it might be, for it was falling on them like blessed dew, though to us it was a shroud. Letty told me after that she heard her baby crying for her, above the gurgling of the rising waters, as plain as ever she heard anything; but the sea-birds were skirling, and the pig shrieking; I never caught it; it was miles away, at any rate.
Just as I’d gotten my knife out, another sound was close upon us, blending with the gurgle of the near waters, and the roar of the distant (not so distant though); we could hardly see, but we thought we saw something black against the deep lead colour of wave, and mist, and sky. It neared and neared: with slow, steady motion, it came across the channel right to where we were.