The record-union., 1891-09-19
HAWTHORNE AND ENGLAND.
Wakeman Wandering Along For
gotten Paths.
Trying to Find Mementoes of the Great
Novelist at the American Consult
ate IN LiverpooI-The Old ''Wash-
ington BuiIding''-Scenes of Long
Ago,
Especial Correspondence of RECoRD-UNIoN
Copyright, 1S91.i

LONDON, Eng, September z, 1891.
Thank heaven, l am a sovereign again,
and no longer a servantv'
So wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in this
city, under date of January g. 1858, after
having called at the American Embassy
to arrange for his passport to Italy
His unfaltering loyalty to his college
and lifelong friend, Franklin Pierce, had
been rewarded by appointment to the
Liverpool Consulate, then the most valu-
able, in point of fees, and most onerous
and unpleasant 10 a men of Hawthorne's
fiber, in point of residence, within the
gift of our Government. He had passed
through the four years. ordeal with credit,
had saved considerable money, but had
accomplished no more than a batch OF
vagarous English notes of travel, and
possibly sketched few misty outlines of
rOmances, and was now. after his long
and irksone slavery at Liverpool, full of
the elation of deliverance and the joyful
enthusiasm growing out of preparations
for the long vacation IN dreamful Italy
Italy the eternal inspirer of dreams until
Italy is known.
chanced upon these eXultant words of
Hawthorne, the other day, III twenty
year-old man, in his hundred year-old
home, beneath the shadows of four
hundred-year-Old church, in the thou
sand-year-old town of Ormskirk, Lanca-
shire.
While the moldy burgh is interesting
enough on its own account, the old man
IN the old home by the old church be-
came positively lovable TO me, because he
loved with a sort of idolatry, the roman
cISt whose memory we all treasure so
previously. The old church looming above
the red tiles of his cottage roof is Curl
ousiy surmounted by a detached tower
and steepIe, the pile so gray, mellow and
ivy-massed as to involuntarily suggest a
gigantic tree Topped off in its lower
trunk, where the huge battlemented
tower stops, out of whose edge. where the
steeple rises, has Sprouted q second Slen-
der tree. The tradition goes that two ca
PRECIOUS maiden sisters, desirOuS of rails
ing some sacred memorial, agreed upon
erecting upon Ormskirk q tower and
steeple, yet, disagreeing as TO uniting
and connecting their work, they finally
expended all their wealth and energies
upon both, each independent of the
other.
l had come to Ormskirk attracted by
the antiquity of the town and the unique
character of this most venerable church,
and, curiously enough, while wandering
about the antique pile encountered the
same man whom Hawthorne had en-
countered nearly forty years before.
The old man had in former times been
simply a waiter in the little Ormskirk
tavern where Hawthorne had once
supped. 1t was fair-day, he reme1n-
bered, when he came. The latter could
readily understand scarcely a word of
the broad Lancashire dialect of the
"portly and ruddy women" and ''yeo-
men with small clothes and broad
brimmed hats" and could secure no.
bOdy's attention on account of the
crowds. He was about TO leave Orms-
kirk in a sort of despair at the ftuitless
outcome of a long foot journey, when
the attendant, who had felt drawn to
him from his kindly and superior per-
sonality, contrived to escape his duties
long enough TO secure Hawthorne ad-
mission to the ancient church, and to
show him other antiquities in the quaint
old town.
On departing, the novelist had CRATE
fully given his guide a halfsovereign. and
bad also said 10 him III his kind, quiet
way: Save your earnings, my good
man, and become independent for your
old days" The old man still treasures
that gold piece with tender delight He
has all of Ha,wthorne's works. They are
as moldy and mussy as the old town
itself. But the man who wrote them, the
book themselves, the tiny bit of gold
whichis one Of the most priced things in
England, and the hours companionship
which | could not but envy him had
made this one humble Engiishman con-
sclous of a new world about him in
which TO live. halo of glory always
lit up that old church when he looked
upon it.
The magic Of it all came to me some
thing as il had come to this old man. NV
purpose was at once changed. / felt a
glowing desire to follow in his footsteps.
to loiter in the places he had known; to
hunt for his hauntS here, and to recover
what might still be gathered, if meager
that should be, of the incident locale, IA
vor and personality from those years he
passed in official life in England, so little
of which had ever been revealed, and so
much of which was rapidly and irrevoca-
bly, passing into the sealed silence of for
getfulneSs.
So I took the road over which Haw-
thOrne had come from Southport. Four
teen miles he walked, but the pleasure of
it all made the distance seem but an
hours tramp to me. There was first the
pleasant hilly conntry, and then the low
lying lands by the sea; ancient Scaris-
brick Hall, with its fine gateway and
lodge; the old bridge where he lounged
on the parapet; the aged stone houses
built merely for respectable occu-
pants;' the canal with its lazy boats; the
little girls, now as then, still watching
Maypole Inn at the little village where
Hawthorne asked for some cold meat
and ale" and got instead a royal dinner
with home-brewed ale, mot very mighty.
but good to quench thirst to wash it
down with; and, all the way, the harvest
ers gathering their crops, were just as his
eyes had seen them, until roofs of the
gay wateringplace showed above the
sand-dunes and verdure of merry South
port.
Here the wrath 1 had followed from
Ormskirk seemed obscured for a little in
the modern brightness of the pretty and
popuIous resort. Once before during the
year, when lettering at Southport, the
former presence of the man had seemed
to invOluntarily crowd into eVeryspicture
of the place which came through eyes and
heart 10 the pencil for shaping. Under
its friendly influence at that time / wrote:
Perhaps IL is largely fanciful association
of person and place, but somehow with
Hawthorne in ones mind, the lovely
leafy city as it is to-day, takes on the
garb of our own delicious Salem The
trim, pretty yards recall it, The long,
elm-shaded avenues, with a CLINT and
simmer of the sea through their narrow
ing vistas, bring it lovingly TO the mem
ory. The wide, clean, sunshine-dappled
yards, backed by prim, precise houses,
hint of it. Hundreds of "hipped' roofs,
quaint gables and ivy-haunted dormers
reproduce its sweet Old hooks.
But by dint of patient hunting among
the old, old folk, kindly receptions which
came 10 naught, suspicious rebuffs COM
prlsing strong intimations of the powers
of the constabulary, and coaxings togeth-
er OF yagrant waits of others memory.
this one, that one and another one, had
many pleasant little things to say worth
treasuring: OF Brunswick Terrace,
where the Hawthornes lived, from Sep
tenlber, 1856, to April, 1857. still standing
near the glOriNns Snllfhnnrf finrnsh hnrn