f the most picturesque parts of the Irwell valley. The country around
me was part of the wild tract still known by its ancient name of the
Forest of Rossendale. Lodges of water and beautiful reaches of the
winding river gleamed in the evening sun, among green holms and patches
of woodland, far down the vale; and mills, mansions, farmsteads,
churches, and busy hamlets succeeded each other as far as the eye could
see. The moorland tops and slopes were all purpled with fading heather,
save here and there where a well-defined tract of green showed that
cultivation had worked up a little plot of the wilderness into pasture
land. About eight miles south, a gray cloud hung over the town of Bury,
and nearer, a flying trail of white steam marked the rush of a railway
train along the valley. From a lofty perch of the hills, on the
north-west, the sounds of Haslingden church bells came sweetly upon the
ear, swayed to and fro by the unsettled wind, now soft and low, borne
away by the breeze, now full and clear, sweeping by me in a great gush
of melody, and dying out upon the moorland wilds behind. Up from the
valley came drowsy sounds that tell the wane of day, and please the ear
of evening as she draws her curtains over the world. A woman's voice
floated up from the pastures of an old farm-house, below where I sat,
calling the cattle home. The barking of dogs sounded clear in different
parts of the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I
could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the
lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly
call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below
me. From a wooded slope, on the opposite side of the valley, the crack
of a gun came, waking the echoes for a minute; and then all seemed to
sink into a deeper stillness than before, and the dreamy surge of sound
broke softer and softer upon the shores of evening, as daylight sobered
down. 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 outli