Cranford

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II

It is something for tcs Cockneys to knozv that Mrs, Gaskell belongs to London after all, if only as a baby. Although so much of her life was spent in the North, and Knutsford was the home of her childJiood, and Manchester

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that of her married life^ yet she zvas born in Chelsea, She zvas born in 1 8 1 o, in pretty old Lindsay Placc^ of which tJie zvindozvs — ancient lights even then — still look out upon the river at its turn, as it flows from Cheyne RoWy toivards the sunset ^ past Fulham Palace^ wJicre the Bislwps dwells and Hampton Court and its histories^ out into the country plains beyond,

Mrs, Gaskell was born in that propitious hour of the great men and women who came into the world in the beginning of this century: may the next hundred years bring to our descendants many more such birthdays I She belonged to a good stock on either side ; her father came from Berwick upon Tweedy that city built upoft t/ie rock ; he was Mr, William Stevenson^ a Unitarian minister, Tticre is a tradition that the Stevensons came originally from Norway y and there are old family papers in which tJte name is spelled Stevensen, Mrs, Gaskell liked to think of her Scandinavian forefat/iers, and when she zvent azvay nozv and again for little Jaunts and expeditions ^ such as s/ie always enjoyed^ site used to laugh and say that the blood of the Vikings her ancestors was rising in her veins, SJie was always tenderly attached to her father^ s memory y and proud and fond of him, and he must have been indeed a most interesting and delightftd character, A letter lately written to the Athenaeum, evidently by some old friend of tJie famifyy gives a quotation from Longman's Annual Obituary yi?r 1830 and of the notice of Mr, Stevenson^ s death, beginning thus: * The literary and * scientific world has sustained a great loss in the death of

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* Mr, StevensoUy a man remarkable for the stores of know-

* ledge which he possessed^ and for the simplicity and ' modesty by which his rare attainments were concealed^ Among other facts we read that in early life while preaching at Manchester Mr, Stevenson was also * Classical

Tutor in tfie Manchester Academy, so well hiown through the Aikens and Barbaulds, He was afterzvards appointed secretary to Lord Lauderdale, and finally Keeper of the Records to the Treasury, both of which appointments brought him up to London! He laboured with unremitting diligence, contributing to the Edinburgh Review, the Westminster, andDr, Brewster^ s Encyclopedia. * He had ' the true spirit of a faithful historian, and, contrary to the ' practice too prevalent in those days, dived into original

* sources of information! ^ Was not this the father, one might imagine, for such a daughter ? Mr, Stevenson married, as his first wife. Miss Eliza Holland of Sandlebridge. It would not be difiicidt to name some dozen families now existing which have set their mark upon the times, trump cards in the game of life, so to speak, and to one of these families Mrs, GaskeWs mother belonged. The poor young lady died very soon after her little girl was born, and the child was taken away to tJw care of an aunt, her mother^ s sister, who was living at Knutsford in Cheshire with an only child, a cripple. The whole story was very melancholy, and one can imagine that it may have beeii a somewhat sad and silent home for

^ Mr, Sievenson^s father — Mrs, GaskelVs grandfather — was a captain in the Royal Navy. One can well imagine that some of the sailors blood still coursed in the veins of the woman whose spirit was so free and so adventurous.

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a little girl full of life and imagination. There was an tcnclc also divelling in the same little cou7itry tozvn, Dr. Peter Holland ^ who was the father of the great physician Sir Henry Holland^ and the grandfather of the present Lord Knutsford, Besides their houses in Knutsford the Holland family had a pretty old country house some tivo or three miles beyond the town^ from wJience Mrs. GaskelFs own mother had come. The house where Mrs. Gaskell lived as a little girl with her atmt is on the Heathy a tall red house ^ with a wide spreading view, and with a pretty carved staircase and many light windows both back and front.

I have heard that Mrs. Gaskell was not always quite happy in those days, — imaginative children go through many phases and trials of their own, — in her hours of childish sorrow and trouble she 7ised to run away from lier aunfs house across the Heath and hide herself in one of its many green holloivs, finding comfort in the silence, and in the company of birds and insects and natural things. But at other times she had delightful games of play with her cousins in the sweet old family Jioiise at Sandlebridge, where so many Hollands in turn had lived.

T/ie old house stands lonely in a beautiful and tranquil position, with a waving prospect of fields and shady trees and hedges, reaching to the hills which rise in t/ie far distance. As we stood there we could see Alder ley Edge clean painted against the stormy sky. fust before reaching tlie house the road dips into a green hollow, where stajtds a forge which has been there for over two hundred years, handed down from father to son. fust beyond the forge

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is an old mill^ shaded by beautiful trees ; we could Juar the peaceful sounds of labour^ the clanking blows of the anvil, the soft monotonous thud of the milL

Sandlebridge is now given up to a farmer ; a pretty flagged stone path leads up to the front door There used to be two brick pediments with balls at the garden gate. Years ago, so long ago that the great Lord Clive was only a schoolboy in Knutsford at the time (Jiis mother zuas a Gaskell and had conuectiotis in the place), he used to come over to spend his half holidays at Sandlebridge, and his pleasiire was to Jump across from one stone ball to the other, to the g7'eat danger of his legs and arms. Here too in later times, as zve have said, Mrs, Gaskell used to come as a little girl, and play with her cousins and gather flozvers from the garden. There was a great bed of saxifrage, which may still be there, it was always her favourite flozver. The old house is now dismantled, but one or tivo things still remain out of its past; among others are the fine old wooden chimney-pieces in the front parlour, one zvithin the other, — so it seemed to me, — and the old shuffleboard. A shuffleboard is an immensely long table, standing upon legs of shifting oak with many drawers and cupboards underneath. There are hardly any left anyivhere now. They were once used for a game which consisted in jerking Jieavy counters from one end to the other of the shining board, and trying to keep your own and to throtv your enemas over the side of the table. As we wc7'e looking zuith interest at all these relics of bygone times, zve heard a sort of chucking noise from the big inner roofn or kitchen ; it came from a little person

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some two or three months old lying in a huge carved oak cradle by the fire, which cradle must have rocked any number of generations to sleep,

Knutsford itself is a little town of many oak beams and solid brick walls ; there are so many slanting gables left^ and lattices and corners^ that the High Street lias something the look of a mediceval street, * * Tis an old ancient place] said the shopwomau^ standing by Iter slanting counter^ wlicre SJiakespeare himself might have purchased hardware. From tlie main street several narrow courts and passages lead to the other side of the little town, the aristocratic quarter, where are tJie old houses with t/ieir walled gardens. One of these passages runs right through the Royal George Hotel, itself leading from shadow into tlie sunshine, zvhere a goat disports itself, and one or two ladies seem always passing with quiet yet rapid steps, — the inliabitants of Knutsford do not saunter. My friend the sliopwoman told us she had a beautiful garden at the back of her * old ancient place ' ; all tlie houses in Knutsford have gardens, with parterres beautifully kept, and flowers in abundance. It was autumn, but everything was swept and tidy. Straggling branches, plants overgrown and run to seed do not seem to be known in Knutsford amidst its heathy open spaces. There is something so spirited and fresh aiid metliodical in the place that I can understand liow even the flowerbeds have a certain self-respect, and grow trim and straight, instead of straggling about in lazy abandon, as mine do at heme.

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As we entered the Royal George Hotel out of tfte dark street, we came upon a delightful broadside of shi7iing oak staircase and pa7ielled wainscot ; old oak settles and cupboards stood upon the landings. On the walls hung pictures, one was of Lord Beaconsfield, one was a fine print of George IV., and others again of that denuded classic school of art which seems to have taken a last nfuge in old English Inns, There were Chippendale cabinets, old bits of china, and above all there were the beautiful oak bannisters to admire. But these ha7idsome staircases, the china, the wood carvings are all about tlie place, to which the great traffic of the coaches from Liverpool and Manchester brought real prosperity for many years, so that tfie modest little houses are full of worthy things, of pretty doorways, arched corners, carved landings and mahogany doors, to make the fortune of a dealer in bric-a-brac, only that these are not bric-abrac, and this is their charm. The staircases and chimney-pieces are their own original selves, the cupboards were made to dwell in their own particular nic/ies, and' it is the passing generations who turn and unturn the keys as they go by. Our kind Interpreter at Knutsford patiently led us from one place to another ; sometimes we seemed to be in Cranford, greeting our visionary friends ; sometimes we were back in K^iutsford again, looking at the homes of the people we had known in t/ie fact rather than in the fancy. And just as one sometimes sees traces of another place and time still showing in the streets of some new and busy town, so every here

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and there seemed isolated signs and tokens of the visionary familiar city as it has been raised by tJu genius of its founder,