It stands on a gentle eminence, sufficient to give it a good site, and
has a pavement of flat gravestones in front. It is doubtless, as regards
its foundation, a very ancient church, but has not exactly a venerable
aspect, being in too good repair, and much restored in various parts; not
ivy-grown, either, though green with moss here and there. The tower is
square and immensely massive, and might have supported a very lofty
spire; so that it is the more strange that what spire it has should be so
oddly stuck beside it, springing out of the church wall. I should have
liked well enough to enter the church, as it is the burial-place of the
Earls of Derby, and perhaps may contain some interesting monuments; but
as it was all shut up, and even the iron gates of the churchyard closed
and locked, I merely looked at the outside.
From the church, a street leads to the market-place, in which I found a
throng of men and women, it being market-day; wares of various kinds,
tin, earthen, and cloth, set out on the pavements; droves of pigs; ducks
and fowls; baskets of eggs; and a man selling quack medicines,
recommending his nostrums as well as he could. The aspect of the crowd
was very English,--portly and ruddy women; yeomen with small-clothes and
broad-brimmed hats, all very quiet and heavy and good-humored. Their
dialect was so provincial that I could not readily understand more than
here and there a word.
But, after all, there were few traits that could be made a note of. I
soon grew weary of the scene, and so I went to the railway station, and
waited there nearly an hour for the train to take me to Southport.
Ormskirk is famous for its gingerbread, which women sell to the railway
passengers at a sixpence for a rouleau of a dozen little cakes.
November 30th.--A week ago last Monday, Herman Melville came to see me at
the Consulate, looking much as he used to do, and with his characteristic
gravity and reserve of manner. . . . . We soon found ourselves on pretty
much our former terms of sociability and confidence. . . . . He is thus
far on his way to Constantinople. I do not wonder that he found it
necessary to take an airing through the world, after so many years of
toilsome pen-labor, following upon so wild and adventurous a youth as his
was. I invited him to come and stay with us at Southport, as long as he
might remain in this vicinity, and accordingly he did come the next day.
. . . . On Wednesday we took a pretty long walk together, and sat down in
a hollow among the sand-hills, sheltering ourselves from the high cool
wind. Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and
futurity, and of everything else that lies beyond human ken. . . . . He
has a very high and noble nature, and is better worth immortality than
the most of us. . . . . On Saturday we went to Chester together. I love
to take every opportunity of going to Chester; it being the one only
place, within easy reach of Liverpool, which possesses any old English
interest.