122 Country Rambles. 



shine with a more strenuous hospitality. Disley and 

 Marple count not with the places which the sunshine 

 only flatters ; they are always cheerful and pretty, whether 

 it be the hottest day of July, or winter, or spring. Even 

 after a storm, be it ever so vehement, they recover them- 

 selves as rapidly as a child's cheek after the tears. How 

 great and affable, too, their landscapes ! how bright their 

 lawn-like pastures, where tricolour daisies bloom all the 

 year round : there are woods moreover, in the recesses, 

 where we may bathe our eyes in the sweet calm that 

 comes only of green shade, and that like the airy summits 

 up above, give at the same moment both animation and 

 repose. 



Disley is known to most of us as the first station after 

 Hazel-grove, and the point from which departure is taken 

 for Lyme Park. Intermediately there is a delightful 

 walk, reaching the greater part of the distance, upon the 

 right-hand side of the line, through the sylvan covert 

 called Middlewood. The wood is not "preserved." It 

 is semi-private, nevertheless, so that permission to pass 

 through ought to be asked; it is rare, even then, to hear 

 any voices except our own and those of the birds. 

 Either to ascend, or to proceed by train direct to Disley, 

 and enter the wood at the head, is, in its way advan- 

 tageous. The latter is, perhaps, the better course, since 

 we then accompany the stream, one of the very few so 

 near Manchester still unpolluted. The water is the same 

 as that which flows past Bramhall, running thence to 

 Cheadle, where its bubbles swim into the Mersey. 



