Morning journal and courier., 1893-04-15

England. Not far 10 the north Ot damp
 and grimy Liverpool is pretty ormskirk.
 It is half village and half town, for the
 spindles are humming here ss almost eve
 rywhere in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
 Two huge, white roads leading from green
 fields, which were impossible messes in
 oldsn times, rising to gentle eminenoe,
 interseet the place, and the verdure growth of four hundred years almost hides from
 view the nestling, ancient homes, the quaint old shops, the sleepy, restful inns, and the historic church itself.
 The old church looming above the red tiles of the cottage roofs is curiously sur mounted by separate tower and steeple; the pile SO gray, mellow and ivy-massed as to involuntarily suggest gigantic tree Topped off In its lower trunk where the huge bsttlemented tower stops, out of whose edge, where the steeple rises, has sprouted a second slender tree. The tradition goes that two capricious maiden sisters, desir- ous of raising some sacred memorial, agreed upon erecting upon Ormskirk a tower and steeple, yet, disagreeing as to uniting and connecting their work, they
 fnally expended all their wealth and en- ergies upon both, each independent of the
 other. The earliest of the renowned Der
 bys and Stanleys are buried here: Nossy,
 liohened, slumberous, grave, the entire
 place is wondrous picture of tender re-
 pose, and is but one of scores of winsome
 Lancashire villages blending, low-lying
 and hushed, in the pleasant landscape be-
 tween the thunderous towns of mills. What prsoieusy old bits of gray and sun shine and green are the half deserted will lages of Cockermouth and Hawkshead up here in the English lake region, the former in Cumberland, and the latter just inside Lancashire where that county pushes 8
 rugged arm up among the scsrs, fells and
 bikes of the English Alpsl Cockermoush
 itself, where Wordsworth was born, Is but
 one of the many quaint old Cumbrian vil-
 lages, which seem as ancient and messy as
 the rocks out of which they were hewn.
 It is & sweet din, dresmful and songful
 old spot, for the Dsrwent river sweeps me
 lodiously by, and the Cocker river. from
 which the village desives It's name, is emp
 tied into the Derwent at the village side.
 Wordsworth's father, John Wordsworth,
 was an attorney here, and the law agent to
 Sir James Lowther, afterwards the Earl of Lonsdale. The house where the poet was
 born Is a long, two storied, hipped-roof
 structure, standing at a corner of Main
 street and e recessed alley, and must have been regarded as a stately affair iu its time. A tier of nine windows in the sec
 ond and eight in the first story face the
 street, which Is shut of by massive stone
 wall with wide coping and monumental projections at regular intervals and st the corners. In the area between the street
 walls and the house are several pertly trimmed shade trees, and the apple garden in the rear extends to the banks of the lovely Derwent.
 Hawksheed lies midway between the
 queen of the English lakes, WindermeIe, and Coniston water, near which may be found the home of John Ruskin, and nestles prettily beside the beautiful Esth-
 waite water. It is by far the most an tisue village in the lake country. The old school house is standing just as Words worth left 1t. It Is no more than a tiny stone dungeon, with wide, low windows, 6 single broad, low door, and a whitewsshed school-room interior, where a tall man would be In danger of pumping the ceiling beams with his head.
 The school-boy, Wordsworth, out his name into his desk, and the scarred old plank is accordingly prizsd as precious relic. Every one will remember the good old dame, Anne Tyson, with whom Words worth lived. and who was so much moth CT to hin during his boyhood's days at Hawkshead. Her cottage Is still standing; and
 ''The snow white church upon the hill," made famous in the "Preluds," stands ss | then In @ near field. Around 1t the sheep | and lambs are grazing. But the old life | went out of Hawkshead with the hand | looms; you will never find more than a | score of worshipers at service within 1t; | and the incumbency is SO reduced that the | village rector himself rings the chime of | bells which calls the dim old folk that re- main to this all but deserted shrine.
 Here again are tyyes of villages, one in the north and another in the west Riding | of Yorkshire; neither like the scores of sunny hamlets in tender Yorkshire vales,
 but standing grimly and stoutly against
 the shuddering moors, defiant of change
 and the tempests of centuries. Come with
 me over dreary Ssanemoor's wilds, and
 look down there upon dead old Bowes.
 There lies the sinuous shell of the an
 cient villsge-a winding, cobbled, grass'
 grown street of half a mile in length,
 aanked by ruined houses, half of whose
 matched roofs have fallen in. Far to the
 east the eye catches glimpse of the clss
 sic domain of Rokeby. To the north ths
 dells and fells, where flows the river Tees
 To the south the glen of Greta, where
 that river tumbles and sings. That huge
 lone, stone structure, the first at Bowe
 from the Grets bridge way, weird ana
 shostly under huge sycamores, was for
 merly another Dotheboys Hall. Richard
 Golden once owned 1t and made 1t hi
 home.
 , Then the Unicorn inn, with its acre l of cut buildings, empty and moss grown Opposite, another silent inn, the Rose ant Drown. Then, facing westward, httl Norman church. Near 1t the ruins o Norman castle. Behind these ruins tn : ancient Roman station of Ssvatrse, wher , are remains of baths and an acqueduot Then rooted and unroofed novels on eith : CT side to the westward. where you vii , see, still standing just as Dickens de } soribed . veritsbls Dotheboys Hall in hi Nicholas Niokleby, ''a long, cold-lookini ' house, one story high, with few strag
 gling out buildings behind, and barr ) and stable adjoining"
 , The other Is Haworth. Seen at 6 dis tancs 1t seems a half-defned line of rag Qsd gray cut in another line of gray } above which is the lofty, dreary Hawortl moor. There is but single street; close sometimes extend for a house-length t the right and left. The yard-wide pave . ments are series of stone stairs and plat forms. Beneath the latter are shadow. } shops and living rooms. All stand open But few inhabitants are to be seen. Up up, up, for a half mile, you Plod, aud 6 last reach . tiny open space. The house
 are set around 1t closely. Quaint shop
 and ancient inns crowd 1t at all sorts o } curious angles. This is the head of tn , village, Geographically, in habitations ant in aristocracy.
 Not for It's attraetiveness, but because seems an outlet to somewhere, you pss into little court behind the Black Bul , inn. It is a maze of angles and wynds = Suddenly another tiny open space con 3 fronts you. Here are an old, oblong, two r storied etone house, with s few yards o : grass-plot at Its side; a little stone church ] attached to, rather than blended with, , grim Norman tower; a graveyard olui 3 tered with crumbling stone; the whol barely covering an acre of ground. Thee : were Haworth parsonage, church an I church yard; the earthly, and final, hom l of the Brontes; and their living eyes eve . rested on Haworth moor, which rises In . mediately above the church-yard like 3 wall of rounded stone.
 9 Come to such es these in the summe l time only. Then feecy clouds strsggi over and between the hills as If shadow l. hosts were marshalling behind the hor e zon. Here and there splatches of color Il '- against old walls and house-fronts. Tn 8 heather blushes from the undulant gree @ of the moors. And one can then easil J. imagine bits of Apulian pastoral scener T here in the shepherds and their focks, Hk 7 perspective of billowy lines and mist
 clouds.
 F. Over here In Northamptonshire, just V the edge of the garden shire of Warwicl