Lancashire Sketches

CHAPTER I

At the western edge of that quiet tract of Lancashire, called "The Fylde," lying between Wyre, Ribble, and the Irish Channel, the little wind-swept hamlet of Norbreck stands, half asleep, on the brow of a green ridge overlooking the sea. The windows of a whitewashed cottage wink over their garden wall, as the traveller comes up the slope, between tall hedgerows; and very likely he will find all so still, that, but for wild birds that crowd the air with music, he could hear his footsteps ring on the road as clearly as if he were walking on the flags of a gentleman's greenhouse. In summer, when its buildings are glittering in their annual suit of new whitewash, and when all the country round looks green and glad, it is a pleasant spot to set eyes upon—this quiet hamlet overlooking the sea. At that time of year it smells of roses, and of "cribs where oxen lie;" and the little place is so steeped in murmurs of the ocean, that its natural dreaminess seems deepened thereby. I cannot find that any great barons of the old time, or that any world-shaking people have lived there; or that any events which startle a nation have ever happened on that ground; but the tranquil charm that fills the air repays for the absence of historic fame.

There is seldom much stir in Norbreck, except such as the elements make. The inhabitants would think the place busy with a dozen people upon its grass-grown road at once, whatever the season might be. It is true that on a fine day in summer I have now and then seen a little life just at the entrance of the hamlet. There, stands a pretty cottage, of one story, consisting of six cosy rooms, that run lengthwise; its white walls adorned with rose trees and fruit trees, and its windows bordered with green trellis work. Two trim grass-plots, with narrow beds of flowers, and neat walks, mosaically-paved with blue and white pebbles from the sea, fill up the front garden, which a low white wall and a little green gate enclose from the road. In front of this cottage, I have sometimes seen a troop of rosy children playing round a pale girl, who was hopelessly infirm, and, perhaps on that account, the darling of the whole household. I have seen her rocking in the sun, and, with patient melancholy, watching their gambols, whilst they strove to please her with all kinds of little artless attentions. Poor Lucy! Sometimes, after swaying to and fro thoughtfully in her chair, she would stop and ask questions that sent her father out of the room to wipe his eyes. "Papa, are people lame in heaven?" "Papa, are angels poorly sometimes, like we are here?" … It is one of those beautiful compensations that mingle with the mishaps of life, that such a calamity has often the sweet effect of keeping kind hearts continually kind. The poor Lancashire widow, when asked why she seemed to fret more for the loss of her helpless lad than for any of her other children, said she couldn't tell, except "it were becose hoo'd had to nurse him moor nor o' tother put together." Surely, "there is a soul of good in all things evil." About this pretty cottage, where little Lucy lived, is the busiest part of the hamlet in summer time. There may chance to be two or three visitors sauntering in the sunshine; or, perhaps, old Thomas Smith, better known as "Owd England," the sea-beaten patriarch of Norbreck, may paddle across the road to look after his cattle, or, staff in hand, may be going down to "low water" a-shrimping, with his thin hair playing in the breeze. Perhaps Lizzy, the milkmaid, may run from the house to the shippon, with her skirt tucked up, and the neb of an old bonnet pulled down to shade her eyes; or Tom, the cow lad, may be leaning against a sunny wall, whistling, and mending his whip, and wondering how long it wants to dinner-time. There may be a fine cat dozing on the garden wall, or gliding stealthily towards the outhouses. These are the common features of life there. For the rest, the sounds heard are mostly the cackle of poultry, the clatter of milk cans, the occasional bark of a dog, the distant lowing of kine, a snatch of country song floating from the fields, the wild birds' "tipsy routs of lyric joy," and that all-embracing murmur of the surge which fills one's ears wherever we go. In Norbreck everything smacks of the sea. On the grassy border of the road, about the middle of the hamlet, there is generally a pile of wreck waiting the periodical sale which takes place all along the coast. I have sometimes looked at this pile, and thought that perhaps to this or that spar some seaman might have clung with desperate energy among the hungry waters, until he sank, overpowered, into his uncrowded grave. The walls of gardens and farmyards are mostly built of cobles from the beach, sometimes fantastically laid in patterns of different hues. The garden beds are edged with shells, and the walks laid with blue and white pebbles. Here and there are rockeries of curiously-shaped stones from the shore. Every house has its little store of marine rarities, which meet the eye on cornices and shelves wherever we turn. Now and then we meet with a dead sea-mew on the road, and noisy flocks of gulls make fitful excursions landward; particularly in ploughing time, when they crowd after the plough to pick slugs and worms out of the new furrows.

With a single exception, all the half-dozen dwellings in Norbreck are on one side of the road, with their backs to the north. On the other side there are gardens, and a few whitewashed outhouses, with weatherbeaten walls. The main body of the hamlet consists of a great irregular range of buildings, formerly the residence of a wealthy family. This pile is now divided into several dwellings, in some of which are snug retreats for such as prefer the seclusion of this sea-nest to the bustle of a crowded watering place. A little enclosed lawn, belonging to the endmost of the group, and then a broad field, divides this main cluster from the only other habitation. The latter seems to stand off a little, as if it had more pretensions to gentility than the rest. It is a picturesque house, of different heights, built at different times. At the landward end, a spacious yard, with great wooden doors close to the road, contains the outbuildings, with an old-fashioned weather-vane on the top of them. The lowmost part of the dwelling is a combination of neat cottages of one story; the highest part is a substantial brick edifice of two stories, with attics. This portion has great bow windows, which sweep the sea view, from the coast of Wales, round by the Isle of Man, to the mountains of Cumberland. In summer, the white walls of the cottage part are covered with roses and creeping plants, and there is an air of order and tasteful rusticity about the whole; even to the neat coble pavement which borders the wayside. On the top of the porch a stately peacock sometimes struts, like a feathered showman, whilst his mate paces to and fro, cackling on the field wall immediately opposite. There are probably a few poultry pecking about the front; and, if it happens to be a sunny day, a fine old English bear-hound, of the Lyme breed, called "Lion," and not much unlike his namesake in the main, may be seen stretched in a sphinx-like posture on the middle of the road, as if the whole Fylde belonged to him, by right of entail; and slowly moving his head with majestic gaze, as if turning over in his mind whether or not it would be polite to take a piece out of the passing traveller for presuming to walk that way. Perhaps in the southward fields a few kine are grazing and whisking their tails in the sunshine, or galloping from gap to gap under the influence of the gad-fly's spur; and it may happen that some wanderer from Blackpool can be seen on the cliffs, with his garments flapping in the breeze. Except these, and the rolling surge below, all is still at this end of the hamlet, unless the jovial face of the owner appear above the wall that encloses his outbuildings, wishing the passer-by "the fortune of the day." Norbreck, as a whole, is no way painfully genteel in appearances, but it is sweet and serene, and its cluster of houses seems to know how to be comfortable, without caring much for display. Dirt and destitution are unknown there; in fact, I was told that this applies generally to all the scattered population of that quiet Fylde country. Though there are many people there whose means of existence are almost as simple as those of the wild bird and the field mouse, yet squalor and starvation are strangers amongst them. If any mischance happen to any of these Fylde folk, everybody knows everybody else, and, somehow, they stick to one another, like Paddy's shrimps,—if you take up one you take up twenty. The road, which comes up thither from many a mile of playful meanderings through the green country, as soon as it quits the last house, immediately dives through the cliffs, with a sudden impulse, as if it had been reading "Robinson Crusoe," and had been drawn all that long way solely by its love for the ocean. The sea beach at this spot is a fine sight at any time; but in a clear sunset the scene is too grand to be touched by any imperfect words. Somebody has very well called this part of the coast "the region of glorious sunsets." When the waters retire, they leave a noble solitude, where a man may wander a mile or two north or south upon a floor of sand finer than any marble, "and yet no footing seen," except his own; and hear no sounds that mingle with the mysterious murmurs of the sea but the cry of the sailing gull, the piping of a flock of silver-winged tern, or the scream of the wild sea-mew. Even in summer there are but few stragglers to disturb those endless forms of beauty which the moody waves, at every ebb, leave printed all over that grand expanse, in patterns ever new.

Such is little Norbreck, as I have seen it in the glory of the year. In winter, when the year's whitewash upon its houses is getting a little weather-worn, it looks rather moulty and ragged to the eye; and it is more lonely and wild, simply because nature itself is so then; and Norbreck and nature are not very distant relations.

CHAPTER II

It was a bonny day on the 5th of March, 1860, when I visited Norbreck, just before those tides came on which had been announced as higher than any for a century previous. This announcement brought thousands of people from the interior into Blackpool and other places on that coast. Many came expecting the streets to be invaded by the tide, and a great part of the level Fylde laid under water; with boats plying above the deluged fields, to rescue its inhabitants from the towers of churches and the tops of farmhouses. Knowing as little of these things as inland people generally do, I had something of the same expectation; but when I came to the coast, and found the people going quietly about their usual business, I thought that, somehow, I must be wrong. It is true that one or two farmers had raised their stacks several feet, and another had sent his "deeds" to Preston, that they might be high and dry till the waters left his land again; and certain old ladies, who had been reading the newspapers, were a little troubled thereby; but, in the main, these seaside folk didn't seem afraid of the tide.

During the two days when the sea was to reach its height, Blackpool was as gay, and the weather almost as fine, as if it had been the month of June, instead of "March—mony weathers," as Fylde folk call it. The promenade was lively with curious inlanders, who had left their "looms" at this unusual season, to see the wonders of the great deep. But when it came to pass that, because there was no wind to help in the water, the tide rose but little higher than common, many people murmured thereat, and the town emptied as quickly as it had filled. Not finding a deluge, they hastened landward again, with a painful impression that the whole thing was a hoax. The sky was blue, the wind was still, and the sun was shining clearly; but this was not what they had come forth to see.

Though some were glad of any excuse for wandering again by the shores of the many-sounding ocean, and bathing soul and body in its renovating charms, the majority were sorely disappointed. Among these, I met one old gentleman, close on seventy, who declared, in a burst of impassioned vernacular, that he wouldn't come to Blackpool again "for th' next fifty year, sink or swim." He said, "Their great tide were nowt i'th world but an arran' sell, getten up by lodgin'-heawse keepers, an' railway chaps, an' newspapper folk, an sich like wastril devils, a-purpose to bring country folk to th' wayter-side, an' hook brass eawt o' their pockets. It were a lond tide at Blackpool folk were after;—an they wanted to get it up i' winter as weel as summer. He could see through it weel enough. But they'd done their do wi' him. He'd too mich white in his e'en to be humbugged twice o'er i'th' same gate, or else he'd worn his yed a greyt while to vast little end. But he'd come no moor a seein' their tides, nor nowt else,—nawe, not if the whole hole were borne't away,—folk an' o,' bigod! He did not blame th' say so mich,—not he. Th' say would behave itsel' reet enough, iv a rook o' thievin' devils would nobbut let it alone, an' not go an' belie it shamefully, just for th' sheer lucre o' ill-getten gain, an' nowt else.... He coom fro' Bowton, an' he're beawn back to Bowton by th' next train; an' iv onybody ever see'd him i' Blackpool again, they met tell him on't at th' time, an' he'd ston a bottle o' wine for 'em, as who they were. They had a little saup o' wayter aside o' whoam that onsert their bits o' jobs i' Bowton reet enough. It're nobbut a mak ov a bruck; but he'd be content wi' it for th' futur—tide or no tide. They met tak their say, an' sup it, for him,—trashy devils!" Of course, this was an extreme case, but there were many grumblers on the same ground; and some amusement arising out of their unreasoning disappointment.

Down at Norbreck, about four miles north of Blackpool, though there was a little talk, here and there, about the curious throng at the neighbouring watering-place, all else was still as usual. "Owd England," the quaint farmer and fisherman of the hamlet, knew these things well. He had lived nearly seventy-four years on that part of the coast, and he still loved the great waters with the fervour of a sea-smitten lad. From childhood he had been acquainted with the moods and tenses of the ocean; and it was a rare day that didn't see him hobble to "low water" for some purpose or other. He explained to me that a tide of much lower register in the tables, if brought in by a strong wind, would be higher in fact than this one with an opposite wind; and he laughed at the fears of such as didn't know much about the matter. "Thoose that are fleyed," said he, "had better go to bed i' boats, an' then they'll ston a chance o' wakenin' aboon watter i'th' mornin'.... Th' idea of a whol teawn o' folk comin' to't seea for this. Pshaw! I've no patience wi' 'em!… Tide! There'll be no tide worth speykin' on,—silly divuls,—what I knaw. I've sin a fifteen-fuut tide come far higher nor this twenty-one foot eleven can come wi' th' wind again it,—sewer aw hev. So fittin it should, too.... But some folk knawn nowt o'th' natur o' things." Lame old Billy Singleton, a weather-worn fisherman, better known by the name of "Peg Leg," sat knitting under the window, with his dim eyes bent over a broken net. "Owd England" turned to him and said, "It wur a fifteen-fuut tide, Billy, at did o' that damage at Cleveless, where th' bevel-men are at wark." Old "Peg Leg" lifted his head, and replied, "Sewer it wor, Thomas; an', by the hectum, that wor a tide! If we'd hed a strang sou'-west wind, this wad ha' played rickin' too. I've heeard as there wor once a village, ca'd Singleton Thorpe, between Cleveless and Rossall, weshed away by a heigh tide, abaat three hundred year sin'. By the hectum, if that had happen't i' these days, Thomas, here wod ha' bin some cheeop trips an' things stirrin' ower it." He then went on mending his net.

Old bed-ridden Alice, who had spent most of the daylight of seven years stretched upon a couch under the window, said, "But it never could touch us at Norbreck,—nowt o't sooart. It's nearly th' heighest point i't country; isn't it, uncle?" "Sartiny," said "Owd England;" "but," continued he, "iv ye want to see summat worth rememberin', ye mun go to low watter. It'll be a rare seet. Th' seea 'll ebb far nor ever wor knawn i'th' memory o' mon; an' here'll be skeers an' rocks eawt at hesn't bin sin of a hundred year. Iv ye'd like to set fuut o' greawnd at nobody livin' mun walk on again, go daan with us at five o'clock o' Friday afternoon." I felt that this would indeed be an interesting sight, and I agreed to accompany the old fisherman to low water.

It was a cloudless, summer-like evening, when our little company of four set out from Norbreck, As we descended the cliffs, the track of the declining sun's beams upon the sea was too glorious for eyes to endure; and every little pool and rill upon the sands gleamed like liquid gold. A general hush pervaded the scene, and we could hear nothing but our own voices, and a subdued murmur of the distant waves, which made the prevailing silence more evident to the senses. "Owd England" led the way, with his favourite stick in hand, and a basket on his arm for the collection of a kind of salt water snail, called "whilks," which, he said, were "the finest heytin' of ony sort o' fish i'th world for folk i' consumptions." "Ye happen wouldn't think it," said he, "bod I wor i' danger o' consumption when I were a young mon." As we went on, now over a firm swelling sand-bank, now stepping from stone to stone through a ragged "skeer," and slipping into pools and channels left by the tide; or wading the water in reckless glee,—the fine old man kept steadily ahead, muttering his wayward fancies as he made towards the silver fringe that played upon the skirts of the sea. Now and then he stopped to point out the rocks, and tell their names. "That's th' Carlin' an' Cowt,—a common seet enough. Ye see, it's not far eawt.... Yon's 'Th' Mussel Rock,' deawn to so'thard. Ther's folk musselin' on it neaw, I believe. But we'll go that way on.... Tak raand bith sond-bank theer. Yaar noan shod for wadin'; an' this skeer's a varra rough un.... That's 'Penny Stone,' reight afore you, toward th' seea. Ye'll hev heeard o' 'Th' Penny Stone Rock,' mony a time, aw warnd. There wor once a public-heawse where it stons, i'th owd time; an' they sowd ale there at a penny a pot. Bod then one connot tell whether it wor dear or cheeop till they knaw what size th' pot wor—an' that I dunnot knaw. Mr. Thornber, o' Blackpool, hes written a book abaat this 'Penny Stone;' an' I believe at Mr. Wood, o' Bispham Schoo', hes one. He'll land it yo in a minute, aw warnd. Ye mun send little Tom wi' a bit ov a note. I never see 'Penny Stone' eawt so as to get raand it afore.... Neaw, yon far'ast, near low watter, is 'Th' Owd Woman's Heyd.' I've oft heeard on it, an' sometimes sin a bit o't tip aboon watter, bod I never see it dry i' my life afore,—an' I never mun again,—never." He then paddled on, filling his basket, and muttering to himself about this extraordinary ebb, and about the shortness of human life. The sun began to "steep his glowing axle in the western wave," and the scene was melting every moment into a new tone of grandeur. As we neared the water, the skeers were more rugged and wet, and, in a few minutes, we picked up a basketful of "whilks," and a beautiful variety of the sea anemone. After the sun had dipped, his lingering glory still crowded the western heavens, and seemed to deepen in splendour as it died upon the scene; while the golden ripples of the sea sang daylight down to rest. I never saw mild evening close over the world with such dreamy magnificence. We wandered by the water, till

The tide was returning, and the air getting cold; so we went homewards, with wandering steps, in the wake of our old fisherman, by way of "Penny Stone Rock." There is a tradition all over the Fyltle that this rock, now only visible "on the utmost verge of the retired wave," marks the locality of a once famous-hostelry. Doubtless the tradition has some foundation in fact, as the encroachments of the sea upon this coast have been great, and sometimes disastrous, as in the destruction of the village of Singleton Thorpe, about a mile and a half to northward, in 1555. In the Rev. W. Thornber's interesting little volume, called "Penny Stone; or a Tradition of the Spanish Armada," he says of the old hostelry associated with this now submerged rock, "It was situated in a vale, protected from the sea by a barrier of sand-hills, at a short distance from a village called Singleton Thorpe, in the foreland of the Fylde, Lancashire. The site of the homestead was romantic, for it was in the very centre of a Druidical circle, described in a former tradition of the country, one of the huge stones of which reared its misshapen block near the porch. Into this stone a ring had been inserted by the thrifty Jock, its host, to which he was wont to attach the horses of his customers whilst they regaled themselves with a penny pot of his far-famed ale. Hither the whole country resorted on holidays, to spend them in athletic games, and to quaff the beloved beverage; nay, so renowned was the hostel, that 'merrie days of hie away to Penny Stone' was common even to a proverb. Here lay the secret enchantment of its popularity. The old distich tell us that

Ale was a beverage which had been well known in England, but in the reign of Henry VIII, it assumed a new name from the infusion of hops. Now, Jock's father, a cunning lout, was the first to commence in the Fylde this new, and at that time mysterious system of brewing, which so pleased the palate of his customers, that, while others sold their insipid malt liquor at twopence per gallon, he vended his ale at a penny per pot. Hence his hostel became known by the name of Penny Stone."

Such is the embodiment Mr. Thornber has given to the common tradition of "Penny Stone," which we were now approaching on our homeward way. As we drew near it, we saw five persons come over the shining sands towards the same spot; and we heard merry voices ringing in the air. I first made out my friend Hallstone, in his strong shooting-dress of light-coloured tweed, and attended by two favourite terriers, "Wasp" and "Snap." We met at the rock, and I found my friend accompanied by three "brethren of the mystic tie," one of whom was Mr. Thornber, the veritable chronicler of "Penny Stone." The latter had wandered thus far, with his companions, mainly to avail himself of this rare chance of climbing his pet legendary crag. His hands were full of botanical specimens from the sea, and, in his fervid way, he descanted upon them, and upon the geology of the coast, in a manner which, I am sorry to say, was almost lost to my uninitiated mind. I took the opportunity of inquiring where he found the materials for his tradition. He answered, that there was no doubt of its fundamental truth; "but, as to the details wrought into the story," said he, pointing to his forehead, with a laugh, "I found them in a cellar, deep down in the rock there."

The gloomy mass was surrounded by a little moat of salt water, nearly knee-deep, through which we passed; and then, clinging to its Triton locks of sea-weeds, we climbed to the slippery peaks of "Penny Stone." The stout lad in attendance drew a bottle from his basket; and then each in his way celebrated this unexpected meeting in that singular spot, where we should never meet together again.

I shall never forget the sombre splendour of the scene, nor the striking appearance of the group upon that lonely rock, when the rearward hues of day were yielding their room to "sad succeeding night." We lingered there awhile; but the air was cold, and the sea began to claim its own again. Four then returned by the cliffs to Blackpool, and the rest crossed the sands hastily to Norbreck, where, after an hour's chat by the old fisherman's great kitchen fire, I crept to bed, with the sound of the sea in my ears.