The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1891-09-24


Thank hoavsa J am sovereign
again, and no longer servantW
50 wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne il
this city under date of Jan. 3, 1853
aftel HAVING called q the American
.mbassv to arrange for his passpor
90 Italy
His unfaltering loyalty to his col
lege and lifelong friend, Franklin
Pierce. had been rewarded by ap
pointment to the Liverpool consulate
then the most valuable, in point o
fees, and most onerous and unpleas
ant to a man of Hawthorne's fibre, in
point of residence, within the
gift of our government. He
had passed through the
four years. ordeal with cred
it; had saved considerable money;
but had accomplished no more than a
batch of vagarOus notes Of English
travel, and possibly sketched few
misty outlines of romances; and was
now, after his long and irksome
slavery at Liverpool, full of the Ella
ton of deliverance and the joyful en-
thusiasm growing out of preparations
for the long vacation in dreamful
Italy-Italy, the eternal inspirer of
dreams until Italy is known.
l CHANGED upon these exultant
words of Hawthorne the other day, in
2S-year-old volume, owned by an 80
year old man, in his 100-year-old home
"eneath the shadows of a 4OO-year-old
church in the 1OOO-year-old town of
Ormskirk, Lancashire.
While the mouldly burgh is inter
efeStlng enough on it's own account
6he old man in the old home by the
oid church became positively lovable
10 me, because he loved with a sort of
iuolatry, the romancist whose memory
we gu treasure so previously. The
Oh cnufGh looming aG2vo the red tiles
OF his cottage roof is curiOusly sur
mounted by q detached tower and
sIeaple; the pile so gray, mellow and |
IVY -massed as to invOluntarily sug-
ges6 gigantic tree Topped off in its
lower trunk, where the huge |
DatIlemented tower stops, out of
whose edge, where the steGple ris-
es, Las sprouted second slender tree.
Inc tradition goes that two caprici-
GUS maiden sisters, DESTROYS of raising
some. sacred memorial, agreed upon
erecting upon Orms-kirk tower and
sVeeeple, yet, disagreeing as to uniting
ana connecting their work, they final
~ expended all their wealth and
energies upon both, each independent
Of the other.
1 had come to Ormskirk at
'racted by the antiquity of the
own. and the unique character
II JillS most venerable church;
ND, Gu fiously enough, while wander
ng ,oout the antique pile encountered
y "a same man whom Hawthorne had
nearly forty years be-
fore.
The old man had in former times
been simply waiter Ill the little
0rmskirk tavern where Hawthorne
had once supped. Ii was fair day, he
ne remembered, when he came. The
latter could readily understand
scarcely a word of the broad Ian
Cashire dialect Of the "portly and
ruddy women and "yeomen with
small clothes and broad-brimmed
hats,D and could secure nobody's
attention on account of the crowds.
He was about to leave Ormskirk in q
sort Of despair at the fruitless out
come 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 adj
mission to the ancient church, and to
show him other antiquities in the
quaint old town.
On departing, the novelist had
gratefully given his guide half SOW
ereign, and had also said to him in
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 Hawthorne's works.
They are as mouldy and musty as the
old town itself. But the man who
wrote them, the books themselves, the
tiny bit of gold which is one of the
mos priced things in England, and
the hour's companionship which l
could not but envy him, had made
this one humble Englishman con-
scious of new world about him in
which to live. A halo of glory always
lit up that old church when he looked
upon e.
The magic of it all came to me
some thing as it came to this old man.
My purpose was at once changed.
felt lowing 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 incidents, locale, flavor and
person llity 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 irrevocably passing into the
sealed silence of forgetfulness.
Sc took the road over which Haw-
thoua had come from Southport.
Fourteen miles he walked, but the
,I1,..,t.., of ~ oil r1ada thp distance