Knutsford, an admirable centre, is reached immediately, by train. But it must not be overlooked that there is a very pleasant field-way thereto from Mobberley, and that the path to Mobberley itself, one of the most ancient of the Cheshire villages, is always interesting,--starting, that is to say, from Ashley station. Every portion of it is quiet and enjoyable, and those who love seclusion would scarcely find another so exactly suited to their taste. Soon after entering the fields, the path dives through a little dell threaded by the Birkin (an affluent of the Bollin), then goes on through lanes which in May are decked plenteously with primroses. The way, perhaps, is rather intricate,--so much the better for the exercise of our sagacity. Let not the "day of small things" be despised. The Birkin is one of the little streams that in the great concourse called the Mersey does honour at last to the British Tyre. Drayton notices it in the Poly-olbion (1622)--
From hence he getteth Goyte down from her Peakish spring, And Bollen, that along doth nimbler Birkin bring.[7]
The church, as would be anticipated, presents much that is interesting to the ecclesiologist. Near the chancel stands the accustomed and here undilapidated old village graveyard yew, emblem of immortality, life triumphing over death, therefore so suitable,--this particular one at Mobberley the largest and most symmetrical within a circuit of many miles. Across the road, hard by, an ash-tree presents a singularly fine example of the habit of growth called "weeping,"--not the ordinary tent-form seen upon lawns, but lofty, and composed chiefly of graceful self-woven ringlets, a cupola of green tresses, beautiful at all seasons, and supplying, before the leaves are out, a capital hint to every one desirous of learning trees--as they deserve to be learned. For to this end trees must be contemplated almost every month in the year, when leafless as well as leafy. A grand tree is like a great poem--not a thing to be glanced at with a thoughtless "I have read it," but to be studied, and with remembrance of what once happened on the summit of mount Ida.
On the Cotterill side of Mobberley, or Alderley way, the country resembles that in the vicinity of Castle Mill, consisting of gentle slopes and promontories, often wooded, and at every turn presenting some new and agreeable feature. The little dells and cloughs, each with its stream of clear water scampering away to the Bollin, are delicious. The botany of Cotterill is also recapitulated in its best features; mosses of the choicest kinds grow in profusion on every bank,--_Hypna_, with large green feathery branches, like ferns in miniature; _Jungermannias_ also; and the noblest plants of the hart's-tongue fern that occur in the district. One of the dells positively overflows with it, excepting, that is, where the ground is not pre-occupied by the prickly shield-fern. Burleyhurst Wood, close by, contains abundance of the pretty green-flowered true-love, _Paris quadrifolia_, more properly _trulove_, the name referring not to the sentiment itself, but to the famous old four-fold symbol of engagement which in heraldry reappears in "quartering." All the spring flowers open here with the first steps of the renewed season; and most inspiring is it, at a time when on the north side of the town there is nothing to be seen but an early coltsfoot, to find one's self greeted in these sweet and perennially green woods, by the primrose, the anemone, the butter-bur, and the golden saxifrage,--and not as single couriers, but plentiful as the delight they give, mingling with the great ferns bequeathed by the autumn, as travellers tell us palms and fir-trees intermix on tropical mountains, while the _Marchantia_ adds another charm in its curious cones, and the smooth round cups of the _Peziza_ glow like so many vases of deepest carnelian. In the aspect of vegetation in early spring, as it discloses itself at Mobberley and at equal distance north of the town, there is the difference of a full month. Such at least was the case in 1858, the year in which these lines were written. There is no occasion to return to Ashley by the same path. Mobberley station is scarcely more than a mile from the village, and of course would be preferred when the object is to reach the latter promptly.