_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 used to run away from her aunt’s house across the Heath and hide herself in one of its many green hollows, 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 house at Sandlebridge, where so many Hollands in turn had lived._
_The 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 the far distance. As we stood there we could see Alderley Edge clean painted against the stormy sky. Just before reaching the house the road dips into a green hollow, where stands a forge which has been there for over two hundred years, handed down from father to son. Just beyond the forge is an old mill, shaded by beautiful trees; we could hear 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 (his mother was a Gaskell and had connections in the place), he used to come over to spend his half holidays at Sandlebridge, and his pleasure was to jump across from one stone ball to the other, to the great danger of his legs and arms. Here too in later times, as we have said, Mrs. Gaskell used to come as a little girl, and play with her cousins and gather flowers from the garden. There was a great bed of saxifrage, which may still be there, it was always her favourite flower. The old house is now dismantled, but one or two things still remain out of its past; among others are the fine old wooden chimney-pieces in the front parlour, one within the other,—so it seemed to me,—and the old shuffleboard. A shuffleboard is an immensely long table, standing upon legs of shining oak with many drawers and cupboards underneath. There are hardly any left anywhere now. They were once used for a game which consisted in jerking heavy counters from one end to the other of the shining board, and trying to keep your own and to throw your enemy’s over the side of the table. As we were looking with interest at all these relics of bygone times, we heard a sort of chucking noise from the big inner room or kitchen; it came from a little person 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._