Middlewood. 1 7 



wall both right and left. From the tree-concealed 

 hollow near the meadow, we hear the sound made 

 by a great water-wheel. The brook, turbid only after 

 heavy storms, is one of the few unpolluted ones 

 still to be found near Manchester, except where build- 

 ings cannot go. It has its rise in four or five springs 

 and rain-fed cavities among the hills near and above 

 Lyme Hall, especially those of Whaley-moor, near 

 Dissop-head and the Bow-stones, at an elevation of 

 1300 feet above the sea, or about 400 feet higher than 

 Lyme Cage, which is calculated to be 882. Running 

 cheerily through Middlewood, it is nowhere long lost 

 sight of; and though at a point where the land lies 

 low, and the course is apt to be forsaken, it is some- 

 times the cause of a little embarrassment, and bestows 

 gratuities in the shape of shoefuls of water, while beside 

 it are interjections and wailings, that to some who listen 

 are sweeter than music, and anon little gallantries, and 

 many splashings, and lost and swimming flowers, and 

 stretched - out arms, and huge leaps, and deputed 

 parasols still, it is always parted with reluctantly. 

 By and by, we shall know more about it, many a 

 charming path being found beside its course ere at 

 Cheadle its bubbles swim into the Mersey. Middle- 

 wood, it must be confessed, .is not a place to venture 

 into for some time after much rain has fallen. When 

 the ground is dry, there is no walk more rewarding; 



but the nature of the soil, and the closeness of the trees, 



B 



