Lancashire Sketches / Third Edition

A merrier man,

Within the limits of becoming mirth,

I never spent an hour's talk withal:

His eye begets occasion for his wit:

For every object that the one doth catch,

The other turns to a mirth-moving jest:

Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor)

Delivers in such apt and gracious words,

That aged ears play truant to his tales.

-Love's Labour Lost.

There is a quiet tract of country on the eastern border of Lancashire, lying in a corner, formed by the junction of the rivers Mersey and Irwell, and having but little intercourse with those great towns of the county which boil with the industry of these days, a few miles off, to the north and eastward. It is the green selvedge of our toilful district, in that direction; and the winding waters of the Mersey lace its meadows, lengthwise, until that river joins the more soiled and sullen Irwell, on the northern boundary of the parish. In all the landscape there are no hills to break the view; and, considering the extent of land, trees are but sparsely scattered over it. It is singular, also, that the oak will not flourish in this particular spot; although there are some fine specimens of the other trees common to the English soil. But the country is generally fertile, and prettily undulated in some places; and it is a pleasant scene in hay-time, "when leaves are large and long," and the birds are singing with full-throated gladness in the green shade, while the dewy swathe is falling to the mower's stroke, in the sunlight of a June morning. Looking eastward, across the Mersey, the park-like plains and rustling woods of Cheshire stretch away, in unbroken beauty, as far as the eye can see. Indeed, the whole of this secluded tract, upon the Lancashire side of the river, may be naturally reckoned part of that fruitful Cheshire district which has, not inappropriately, been called "the market-garden of Manchester." The parish of Flixton occupies nearly the whole of this border nook of Lancashire; and the scattered hamlet of Urmston, in this parish, lays claim to the honour of being the birthplace of our earliest and most popular native humourist, the celebrated John Collier, better known by his self-chosen name of "Tim Bobbin,"-

A lad whose fame did resound

Through every village and town around;

For fun, for frolic, and for whim.

And, certainly, the hamlet of Urmston is a spot quite in keeping with all we know of the general character, and all we can imagine of the earliest training of a man who owed so much to nature, and who described the manners of the country folk of his day with such living truth, enriched with the quaint tinge of a humorous genius, which was his, and his only. Fortune, and his own liking, seem to have made him a constant dweller in the country. He was, by fits, fond of social company, and business led him into towns, occasionally; but whenever he visited towns, he seems to have always turned again towards the chimney-corner of his country home with an undying love, which fairly glows in every allusion he makes to his dwelling-place at the village of Milnrow, and even to the honest, uncouth hinds, who were his neighbours there; and whose portraits he has drawn for us, so inimitably, in his celebrated story of "Tummus and Mary." He was "a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy." May his soul rest "in the bosom of good old Abraham!"

Here, then, in green Urmston, John Collier is said to have been born; and the almost unrecorded days of his childhood were passed here. Even now, the scattered dwellers of the place are mostly employed in agriculture, and their language and customs savour more of three centuries ago than those which we are used to in manufacturing towns. From the cottage homes, and old-fashioned farmhouses, which are dropped over the landscape, like birds' nests, "each in its nook of leaves," generation after generation has come forth to wander through the same grass-grown byeways, and brambly old lanes; to weave the same chequered web of simple joys and sorrows, and cares and toils; and to lie down at last in the same old churchyard, where the "rude forefathers of the hamlet" are sleeping together so quietly. It is a country well worth visiting by any lover of nature, for its own sake. Its natural features, however, are those common to English rural scenery in districts where there are no great elevations, nor anything like thick woodlands; and though such scenery is always pleasing to my mind, it was not on account of its natural charms, nor to see its ancient halls, with the interesting associations of past generations playing about them; nor the ivied porches of its picturesque farmhouses; nor to peep through the flower-shaded lattices of its cottage nests; nor even to scrape acquaintance with the old-fashioned people who live in them, that I first wandered out to Flixton; though there is more than one quaint soul down there that I would rather spend an hour with than with any two fiddlers in the county. Particularly "Owd Rondle," the market-gardener, who used to tell me the richest country tales imaginable. He had a dog, which "wur never quiet, but when it wur feightin." He was a man of cheerful temper, and clear judgment, mingled with a warm undercurrent of chuckling humour, which thawed away stiff manners in an instant. The last time I saw him, a friend of his was complaining of the gloom of the times, and saying that he thought England's sun had set. "Set;" said Rondle, "not it! But iv it wur set, we'd get a devilish good moon up! Dunnut be so ready to mout yor fithers afore th' time comes. Noather me nor England mun last for ever. But Owd Englan's yung yet, for oather peace or war, though quietness is th' best, an' th' chepest; if they'n let us be quiet, on a daycent fuuting. So, keep yor heart up; for th' shell shall be brokken; an' th' chicken shall come forth; an' it shall be a cock-chicken; an' a feighter, with a single kom!" But "Rondle" was not always in this humour. He could doff his cap and bells at will; and liked, what he called, "sarviceable talk," when any really serious matter was afoot. Yet, it was not to see curious "Old Rondle" that I first went down to Flixton. The district is so far out of the common "trod," as Lancashire people say, that I doubt whether I should ever have rambled far in that direction if it had not been for the oft-repeated assertion that Urmston, in Flixton, was the birthplace of John Collier. And it was a desire to see the reputed place of his nativity, and to verify the fact, as far as I could, on the spot-since the honour has been claimed by more than one other place in Lancashire-that first led me out there.

In my next chapter, gentle reader, if thou art minded so far to do me pleasure, we will ramble down that way together: and, I doubt not, that in the course of our journey thou wilt hear or see something or other which may haply repay thee for the trouble of going so far out of thy way with me.

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