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the churchyard. About two miles west of Holcombe village, where, to the south of Black Moss, Stanley Rake slopes down towards the plain, is the farm of Holcombe Hey Fold. Here, about two centuries ago, in a house still pointed out, a lone preacher ministered for many years. A little farther west, in the corner of a meadow, near to Grainings old farm-house, there is, unfenced, a flat tombstone, now a good deal shattered, on which may still be read

"Here lies the body of
ROGER WORTHINGTON

who departed this life
the 9th day of July 1709
About the 50th year of his age.
They that serve Christ

In faith and love

Shall ever reign

With Him above."

Worthington, it is said, belonged to a family from which he suffered ostracism on account of his faith; and, in this remote retreat, in Holcombe Forest, he found ample scope for solitude, and among the scattered upland homesteads, a sphere for Christian service. A solitary sycamore grows a few yards from his grave. The track of pilgrim-feet tells that the sequestered spot is not unvisited. In sight of it, one summer day, a pilgrimage of a rather unusual kind was recited to us thus: "An owd weaver chap1 at Howcum, when chopping sticks one day, cut off half of his fore-finger. He wrapped it up, took it to Worthington's grave, broke off a bit o' th' gravestone, and buried it under

1 For more than the first half of the century there were many handloom weavers in Holcombe and the country round about.

it. He wur sexton and undertaker and parson o' ov a rook,1 to a bit o' hissel! But he wanted it to be near Worthington."

We lingered one winter evening at Holcombe on the picturesque and grave-crowned crest, surrounded by the voiceless yet somehow strangely companionable village sleepers, till the deepening shadows blotted out the silent records from the stones, and frayed away the lingering line on the ancient dial-plate, still daily telling time among the silent denizens for whom time is no more. Then countless lights came out up and down the valley, and kindled along the sides of the opposite hills, like stars in the meadows beneath, instead of those, all cloud-eclipsed, in

"The infinite meadows of heaven." 2

And the cold and gusty wind, while driving a sombre cavalcade of clouds along above the hill, like a great funereal train of the departed day, moaned round the buttressed tower of the church, and whisked and sighed with plaintive eeriness among the silent stones and lone leafless trees, as if in quest of some loved one who had fled like the vanished day, and gone to the realm of silence among the sleeping forms beneath. But, as we stood by the triple step of the darkened sun-dial, a glowing planet shone through the rifted clouds, and stars from the depths beyond; the church clock told out its tale of fleeting time, and its illumined face beamed along the upland village, as we left the impressive spot, thinking how strangely linked are the now and the then, the here and the yonder-the lowly graves of time and the glories of eternity.

1 All of a heap.

2 Longfellow.

70

CHAPTER VI.

WHER

CHEERYBLE BROTHERS.

HEN William Grant, the elder of the future Cheerybles, then a lad of fourteen, and his father, also William, at the age of fifty, looked down for the first time from Top o'th' Hoof, where Grant's Tower now stands, to the fair middle valley of the Irwell, Messrs Peel & Yates were just beginning to build their print-works on the opposite side of the valley at Ramsbottom. It was in the year 1783. The Grants had come from a beautiful strath in the North-Strathspey, where, however, through bad harvests, desolating storms, and other causes, disaster had befallen their farming and cattle-dealing operations; and, moved by a laudable desire for the future wellbeing of a numerous family, they were now in quest of some other occupation.

Writing fifty-six years afterwards, William says: "As we passed along the old road, we stopped for a short time on the Park estate to view the valley. My father exclaimed, What a beautiful valley! May God Almighty bless it! It reminds me of Speyside, but the Irwell is not so large as the river Spey.'" He also wrote in the same letter"In 1827 we purchased the Park estate, and erected a monument to commemorate my father's first visit to this valley, and on the very spot where he and I stood admiring the beautiful scenery below."

Ramsbottom, when thus surveyed for the first time by the Grants, was little more than a place of farms and fields and orchards, rooks and trees, an ancient tannery and an old corn mill, with numerous streams of water flowing from unfailing springs far up the mountain sides. The clearvisioned Peel & Yates were quick to detect the economic value of these pure rills, which ever since have contributed much to the industrial growth of the community, as on their continued generous flow its present and future prosperity in no small measure depends.

The Grants had a letter of introduction to Mr, afterwards Sir, Richard Arkwright, in Manchester. But he had so many applications on hand at the time that he could not engage them. They then went to the Calico Printing and Manufacturing Works of Mr Dinwiddie at Hampson Mill, near Bury. This gentleman had known the father in his earlier and more prosperous days. Mr Dinwiddie found them employment at his works. The other members of the family soon afterwards joined them. There James,1 William, John, and Daniel served their apprenticeship; and William tells us that some time after his was completed, Mr Dinwiddie offered him partnership, which, however, he declined. Subsequently, with their father, they removed to Bury. There they commenced business on a small scale. But their united efforts

1 James afterwards commenced business near Glasgow.

2 See his letter, pp. 94-96, infra.

a

proved very successful; and, about 1800, William, John, and Daniel began calico printing in partnership, in Manchester. Their industry, promptitude, and integrity had been recognised at Bury by Sir Robert Peel, who, by affording business facilities, proved helpful to them in their steady upward endeavours.

Sir Robert found that these men, while cheerful, energetic,
That

generous, and good-natured, could always be relied on.
made him their friend. And, at length, after twenty-three
years of hard and honest toil, and enterprising and united
industry, at Hampson Mill, at Bury, and at Manchester,
William, John, Daniel, and their youngest brother, Charles-
as Messrs William Grant & Brothers-purchased the print-
works of Sir Robert Peel1 at Ramsbottom in 1806.

On coming to Ramsbottom, the Grants lived in the house which had been previously occupied by Mr Henry Warren, one of the partners of Sir Robert Peel. It was originally known as Top o' th' Brow, but afterwards as Grant Lodge, and now forms the back portion of the Grant Arms Hotel.2

1 The firm then was Messrs Peel, Yates, Warren, & Kay.

2 Some years after it ceased to be occupied as a residence by the Grants, and when their parents had passed away, the large three-storied rectangular building, which now forms the front portion, was erected by them; and the whole, embellished with the now gas-illumined clock, bearing their initials, which still discharges its important function to the grateful lieges, was opened as a hotel in 1828. The first three tenants were William Bilsborrow, 1828-1832; Leeds Richardson, 1832-1833; and Robert Raby, 1833-1834. On the Ist of November 1834 George Goodrick became tenant. He had previously been a trusted servant of Mr John Grant at Nuttall Hall. Mr Goodrick conducted the establishment for the long period of over fifty-five years. He died, in his eighty-sixth year, on the 28th of January 1890, and on the 31st was interred at St Andrew's Church. The Volunteer Corps, whose annual dinner and distribution of prizes-for the most part under the wise and patriotic presidency of Major Grant

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