This is Mrs. Gaskell’s first attempt at portraying the bygone
life of the little country town of Knutsford, which she has
idealised in her stories under six different names, and
immortalised as _Cranford_. The beautiful description of the
old Cheshire town is true of Knutsford to-day, for fortunately
“the hand of the builder” has not yet been allowed to spoil its
quaint picturesque beauty.
I was too lazy to do much that evening, and sat in the little bow-window
which projected over Jocelyn’s shop, looking up and down the street.
Duncombe calls itself a town, but I should call it a village. Really,
looking from Jocelyn’s, it is a very picturesque place. The houses are
anything but regular; they may be mean in their details; but altogether
they look well; they have not that flat unrelieved front, which many
towns of far more pretensions present. Here and there a bow-window—every
now and then a gable, cutting up against the sky—occasionally a
projecting upper story—throws good effect of light and shadow along
the street; and they have a queer fashion of their own of colouring
the whitewash of some of the houses with a sort of pink blotting-paper
tinge, more like the stone of which Mayence is built than anything else.
It may be very bad taste, but to my mind it gives a rich warmth to the
colouring. Then, here and there a dwelling house has a court in front,
with a grass-plot on each side of the flagged walk, and a large tree
or two—limes or horse-chestnuts—which send their great projecting upper
branches over into the street, making round dry places of shelter on the
pavement in the times of summer showers.