my friend recognised them as working people living in the district,
and mostly well known to him. He inquired where they had been; and
they told him that they had "bin to a bit ov a sing deawn i'th
Deighn." "Well," said he, "can't we have a tune here?" "Sure, yo
con, wi' o' th' plezzur i'th world," replied he who acted as
spokesman; and a low buzz of delighted consent ran through the rest
of the company. They then ranged themselves in a circle around their
conductor, and they played and sang several fine pieces of psalmody
upon the heather-scented mountain top. As those solemn strains
floated over the wild landscape, startling the moorfowl untimely in
his nest, I could not help thinking of the hunted Covenanters of
Scotland. The all-together of that scene upon the mountains,
"between the gloaming and the mirk," made an impression upon me
which I shall not easily forget. Long after we parted from them we
could hear their voices, softening in sound as the distance grew,
chanting on their way down the echoing glen, and the effect was
wonderfully fine. This little incident upon the top of Swinshaw is
representative of things which often occur in the country parts of
Lancashire, showing how widespread the love of music is among the
working classes there. Even in great manufacturing towns, it is very
common, when passing cotton mills at work, to hear some fine psalm
tune streaming in chorus from female voices, and mingling with the
spoom of thousands of spindles. The "Larks of Dean," like the rest
of Lancashire operatives, must have suffered in this melancholy
time; but I hope that the humble musicians of our county will never
have occasion to hang their harps upon the willows.

Now, when fortune has laid such a load of sorrow upon the working
people of Lancashire, it is a sad thing to see so many workless
minstrels of humble life "chanting their artless notes in simple