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THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP
THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE * * * * *
THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP:
OUTLINES OF AN ENGLISH ROMANCE.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
"Septimius Felton" was the outgrowth of a project formed by Hawthorne
during his residence in England of writing a romance the scene of which
should be laid in that country; but this project was afterwards
abandoned giving place to a new conception in which the visionary search
for means to secure an earthly immortality was to form the principal
interest. The new conception took shape in the uncompleted "Dolliver
Romance." The two themes of course were distinct but by a curious
process of thought one grew directly out of the other: the whole history
constitutes in fact a chapter in what may be called the genealogy of a
romance. There remained after "Septimius Felton" had been published
certain manuscripts connected with the scheme of an English story. One of
these manuscripts was written in the form of a journalized narrative; the
author merely noting the date of what he wrote as he went along. The
other was a more extended sketch of much greater bulk and without date
but probably produced several years later. It was not originally intended
by those who at the time had charge of Hawthorne's papers that either of
these incomplete writings should be laid before the public; because they
manifestly had not been left by him in a form which he would have
considered as warranting such a course. But since the second and larger
manuscript has been published under the title of "Dr. Grimshawe's
Secret" it has been thought best to issue the present sketch so that
the two documents may be examined together. Their appearance places in
the hands of readers the entire process of development leading to the
"Septimius" and "The Dolliver Romance." They speak for themselves much
more efficiently than any commentator can expect to do; and little
therefore remains to be said beyond a few words of explanation in regard
to the following pages.
The Note-Books show that the plan of an English romance turning upon the
fact that an emigrant to America had carried away a family secret which
should give his descendant the power to ruin the family in the mother
country had occurred to Hawthorne as early as April 1855. In August of
the same year he visited Smithell's Hall in Bolton le Moors concerning
which he had already heard its legend of "The Bloody Footstep" and from
that time on the idea of this footprint on the threshold-stone of the
ancestral mansion seems to have associated itself inextricably with the
dreamy substance of his yet unshaped romance. Indeed it leaves its mark
broadly upon Sibyl Dacy's wild legend in "Septimius Felton" and
reappears in the last paragraph of that story. But so far as we can know
at this day nothing definite was done until after his departure for
Italy. It was then while staying in Rome that he began to put upon
paper that plot which had first occupied his thoughts three years before
in the scant leisure allowed him by his duties at the Liverpool
consulate. Of leisure there was not a great deal at Rome either; for as
the "French and Italian Note-Books" show sight-seeing and social
intercourse took up a good deal of his time and the daily record in his
journal likewise had to be kept up. But he set to work resolutely to
embody so far as he might his stray imaginings upon the haunting
English theme and to give them connected form. April 1 1858 he began;
and then nearly two weeks passed before he found an opportunity to
resume; April 13th being the date of the next passage. By May he gets
fully into swing so that day after day with but slight breaks he
carries on the story always increasing in interest for us who read as
for him who improvised. Thus it continues until May 19th by which time
he has made a tolerably complete outline filled in with a good deal of
detail here and there. Although the sketch is cast in the form of a
regular narrative one or two gaps occur indicating that the author had
thought out certain points which he then took for granted without making
note of them. Brief scenes passages of conversation and of narration
follow one another after the manner of a finished story alternating with
synopses of the plot and queries concerning particulars that needed
further study; confidences of the romancer to himself which form
certainly a valuable contribution to literary history. The manuscript
closes with a rapid sketch of the conclusion and the way in which it is
to be executed. Succinctly what we have here is a romance in embryo;
one moreover that never attained to a viable stature and constitution.
During his lifetime it naturally would not have been put forward as
demanding public attention; and in consideration of that fact it has
since been withheld from the press by the decision of his daughter in
whom the title to it vests. Students of literary art however and many
more general readers will I think be likely to discover in it a charm
all the greater for its being in parts only indicated; since as it
stands it presents the precise condition of a work of fiction in its
first stage. The unfinished "Grimshawe" was another development of the
same theme and the "Septimius" a later sketch with a new element
introduced. But the present experimental fragment to which it has been
decided to give the title of "The Ancestral Footstep" possesses a
freshness and spontaneity recalling the peculiar fascination of those
chalk or pencil outlines with which great masters in the graphic art have
been wont to arrest their fleeting glimpses of a composition still
unwrought.
It would not be safe to conclude from the large amount of preliminary
writing done with a view to that romance that Hawthorne always adopted
this laborious mode of making several drafts of a book. On the contrary
it is understood that his habit was to mature a design so thoroughly in
his mind before attempting to give it actual existence on paper that but
little rewriting was needed. The circumstance that he was obliged to
write so much that did not satisfy him in this case may account partly
for his relinquishing the theme as one which for him had lost its
seductiveness through too much recasting.
It need be added only that the original manuscript from which the
following pages are printed through the medium of an exact copy is
singularly clear and fluent. Not a single correction occurs throughout;
but here and there a word is omitted obviously by mere accident and
these omissions have been supplied. The correction in each case is marked
by brackets in this printed reproduction. The sketch begins abruptly;
but there is no reason to suppose that anything preceded it except the
unrecorded musings in the author's mind and one or two memoranda in the
"English Note-Books." We must therefore imagine the central figure
Middleton who is the American descendant of an old English family as
having been properly introduced and then pass at once to the opening
sentences. The rest will explain itself.
G. P. L.
* * * * *
THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP.
OUTLINES OF AN ENGLISH ROMANCE.
I.
April 1 1858. _Thursday_.--He had now been travelling long in those rich
portions of England where he would most have wished to find the object of
his pursuit; and many had been the scenes which he would willingly have
identified with that mentioned in the ancient time-yellowed record which
he bore about with him. It is to be observed that undertaken at first
half as the amusement the unreal object of a grown man's play-day it
had become more and more real to him with every step of the way that he
followed it up; along those green English lanes it seemed as if
everything would bring him close to the mansion that he sought; every
morning he went on with renewed hopes nor did the evening though it
brought with it no success bring with it the gloom and heaviness of a
real disappointment. In all his life including its earliest and happiest
days he had never known such a spring and zest as now filled his veins
and gave lightsomeness to his limbs; this spirit gave to the beautiful
country which he trod a still richer beauty than it had ever borne and
he sought his ancient home as if he had found his way into Paradise and
were there endeavoring to trace out the sight [site] of Eve's bridal
bower the birthplace of the human race and its glorious possibilities of
happiness and high performance.
In these sweet and delightful moods of mind varying from one dream to
another he loved indeed the solitude of his way; but likewise he loved
the facility which his pursuit afforded him of coming in contact with
many varieties of men and he took advantage of this facility to an
extent which it was not usually his impulse to do. But now he came forth
from all reserves and offered himself to whomever the chances of the way
offered to him with a ready sensibility that made its way through every
barrier that even English exclusiveness in whatever rank of life could
set up. The plastic character of Middleton was perhaps a variety of
American nature only presenting itself under an individual form; he could
throw off the man of our day and put on a ruder nature but then it was
with a certain fineness that made this only [a] distinction between it
and the central truth. He found less variety of form in the English
character than he had been accustomed to see at home; but perhaps this
was in consequence of the external nature of his acquaintance with it;
for the view of one well accustomed to a people and of a stranger to
them differs in this--that the latter sees the homogeneity the one
universal character the groundwork of the whole while the former sees a
thousand little differences which distinguish the individual men apart
to such a degree that they seem hardly to have any resemblance among
themselves.
But just at the period of his journey when we take him up Middleton had
been for two or three days the companion of an old man who interested him
more than most of his wayside companions; the more especially as he
seemed to be wandering without an object or with such a dreamy object as
that which led Middleton's own steps onward. He was a plain old man
enough but with a pale strong-featured face and white hair a certain
picturesqueness and venerableness which Middleton fancied might have
befitted a richer garb than he now wore. In much of their conversation
too he was sensible that though the stranger betrayed no acquaintance
with literature nor seemed to have conversed with cultivated minds yet
the results of such acquaintance and converse were here. Middleton was
inclined to think him however an old man one of those itinerants such
as Wordsworth represented in the "Excursion" who smooth themselves by
the attrition of the world and gain a knowledge equivalent to or better
than that of books from the actual intellect of man awake and active
around them.
Often during the short period since their companionship originated
Middleton had felt impelled to disclose to the old man the object of his
journey and the wild tale by which after two hundred years he had been
blown as it were across the ocean and drawn onward to commence this
search. The old man's ordinary conversation was of a nature to draw forth
such a confidence as this; frequently turning on the traditions of the
wayside; the reminiscences that lingered on the battle-fields of the
Roses or of the Parliament like flowers nurtured by the blood of the
slain and prolonging their race through the centuries for the wayfarer
to pluck them; or the family histories of the castles manor-houses and
seats which of various epochs had their park-gates along the roadside
and would be seen with dark gray towers or ancient gables or more modern
forms of architecture rising up among clouds of ancient oaks. Middleton
watched earnestly to see if in any of these tales there were
circumstances resembling those striking and singular ones which he had
borne so long in his memory and on which he was now acting in so strange
a manner; but [though] there was a good deal of variety of incident in
them there never was any combination of incidents having the peculiarity
of this.
"I suppose" said he to the old man "the settlers in my country may have
carried away with them traditions long since forgotten in this country
but which might have an interest and connection and might even piece out
the broken relics of family history which have remained perhaps a
mystery for hundreds of years. I can conceive even that this might be
of importance in settling the heirships of estates; but which now only
the two insulated parts of the story being known remain a riddle
although the solution of it is actually in the world if only these two
parts could he united across the sea like the wires of an electric
telegraph."
"It is an impressive idea" said the old man. "Do you know any such
tradition as you have hinted at?"
_April 13th_.--Middleton could not but wonder at the singular chance that
had established him in such a place and in such society so strangely
adapted to the purposes with which he had been wandering through England.
He had come hither hoping as it were to find the past still alive and in
action; and here it was so in this one only spot and these few persons
into the midst of whom he had suddenly been cast. With these reflections
he looked forth from his window into the old-fashioned garden and at the
stone sundial which had numbered all the hours--all the daylight and
serene ones at least--since his mysterious ancestor left the country.
And [is] this then he thought to himself the establishment of which
some rumor had been preserved? Was it here that the secret had its
hiding-place in the old coffer in the cupboard in the secret chamber
or whatever was indicated by the apparently idle words of the document
which he had preserved? He still smiled at the idea but it was with a
pleasant mysterious sense that his life had at last got out of the dusty
real and that strangeness had mixed itself up with his daily experience.
With such feelings he prepared himself to go down to dinner with his
host. He found him alone at table which was placed in a dark old room
modernized with every English comfort and the pleasant spectacle of a
table set with the whitest of napery and the brightest of glass and
china. The friendly old gentleman as he had found him from the first
became doubly and trebly so in that position which brings out whatever
warmth of heart an Englishman has and gives it to him if he has none.
The impressionable and sympathetic character of Middleton answered to the
kindness of his host; and by the time the meal was concluded the two
were conversing with almost as much zest and friendship as if they were
similar in age even fellow-countrymen and had known one another all
their life-time. Middleton's secret it may be supposed came often to
the tip of his tongue; but still he kept it within from a natural
repugnance to bring out the one romance of his life. The talk however
necessarily ran much upon topics among which this one would have come in
without any extra attempt to introduce it.
"This decay of old families" said the Master "is much greater than
would appear on the surface of things. We have such a reluctance to part
with them that we are content to see them continued by any fiction
through any indirections rather than to dispense with old names. In your
country I suppose there is no such reluctance; you are willing that one
generation should blot out all that preceded it and be itself the newest
and only age of the world."
"Not quite so" answered Middleton; "at any rate if there be such a
feeling in the people at large I doubt whether even in England those
who fancy themselves possessed of claims to birth cherish them more as a
treasure than we do. It is of course a thousand times more difficult
for us to keep alive a name amid a thousand difficulties sedulously
thrown around it by our institutions than for you to do where your
institutions are anxiously calculated to promote the contrary purpose. It
has occasionally struck me however that the ancient lineage might often
be found in America for a family which has been compelled to prolong
itself here through the female line and through alien stocks."
"Indeed my young friend" said the Master "if that be the case I
should like to [speak?] further with you upon it; for I can assure you
there are sometimes vicissitudes in old families that make me grieve to
think that a man cannot be made for the occasion."
All this while the young lady at table had remained almost silent; and
Middleton had only occasionally been reminded of her by the necessity of
performing some of those offices which put people at table under a
Christian necessity of recognizing one another. He was to say the truth
somewhat interested in her yet not strongly attracted by the neutral
tint of her dress and the neutral character of her manners. She did not
seem to be handsome although with her face full before him he had not
quite made up his mind on this point.
_April 14th_.--So here was Middleton now at length seeing indistinctly a
thread to which the thread that he had so long held in his hand--the
hereditary thread that ancestor after ancestor had handed down--might
seem ready to join on. He felt as if they were the two points of an
electric chain which being joined an instantaneous effect must follow.
Earnestly as he would have looked forward to this moment (had he in
sober reason ever put any real weight on the fantasy in pursuit of which
he had wandered so far) he now that it actually appeared to be realizing
itself paused with a vague sensation of alarm. The mystery was evidently
one of sorrow if not of crime and he felt as if that sorrow and crime
might not have been annihilated even by being buried out of human sight
and remembrance so long. He remembered to have heard or read how that
once an old pit had been dug open in which were found the remains of
persons that as the shuddering by-standers traditionally remembered had
died of an ancient pestilence; and out of that old grave had come a new
plague that slew the far-off progeny of those who had first died by it.
Might not some fatal treasure like this in a moral view be brought to
light by the secret into which he had so strangely been drawn? Such were
the fantasies with which he awaited the return of Alice whose light
footsteps sounded afar along the passages of the old mansion; and then
all was silent.
At length he heard the sound a great way off as he concluded of her
returning footstep approaching from chamber to chamber and along the
staircases closing the doors behind her. At first he paid no great
attention to the character of these sounds but as they drew nearer he
became aware that the footstep was unlike those of Alice; indeed as
unlike as could be very regular slow yet not firm so that it seemed
to be that of an aged person sauntering listlessly through the rooms. We
have often alluded to Middleton's sensitiveness and the quick vibrations
of his sympathies; and there was something in this slow approach that
produced a strange feeling within him; so that he stood breathlessly
looking towards the door by which these slow footsteps were to enter. At
last there appeared in the doorway a venerable figure clad in a rich
faded dressing-gown and standing on the threshold looked fixedly at
Middleton at the same time holding up a light in his left hand. In his
right was some object that Middleton did not distinctly see. But he knew
the figure and recognized the face. It was the old man his long since
companion on the journey hitherward.
"So" said the old man smiling gravely "you have thought fit at last
to accept the hospitality which I offered you so long ago. It might have
been better for both of us--for all parties--if you had accepted it
then!"
"You here!" exclaimed Middleton. "And what can be your connection with
all the error and trouble and involuntary wrong through which I have
wandered since our last meeting? And is it possible that you even then
held the clue which I was seeking?"
"No--no" replied Rothermel. "I was not conscious at least of so
doing. And yet had we two sat down there by the wayside or on that
English stile which attracted your attention so much; had we sat down
there and thrown forth each his own dream each his own knowledge it
would have saved much that we must now forever regret. Are you even now
ready to confide wholly in me?"
"Alas" said Middleton with a darkening brow "there are many reasons
at this moment which did not exist then to incline me to hold my peace.
And why has not Alice returned?--and what is your connection with her?"
"Let her answer for herself" said Rothermel; and he called her shouting
through the silent house as if she were at the furthest chamber and he
were in instant need: "Alice!--Alice!--Alice!--here is one who would know
what is the link between a maiden and her father!"
Amid the strange uproar which he made Alice came flying back not in
alarm but only in haste and put her hand within his own. "Hush father"
said she. "It is not time."
Here is an abstract of the plot of this story. The Middleton who
emigrated to America more than two hundred years ago had been a dark
and moody man; he came with a beautiful though not young woman for his
wife and left a family behind him. In this family a certain heirloom had
been preserved and with it a tradition that grew wilder and stranger
with the passing generations. The tradition had lost if it ever had
some of its connecting links; but it referred to a murder to the
expulsion of a brother from the hereditary house in some strange way
and to a Bloody Footstep which he had left impressed into the threshold
as he turned about to make a last remonstrance. It was rumored however
or vaguely understood that the expelled brother was not altogether an
innocent man; but that there had been wrong done as well as crime
committed insomuch that his reasons were strong that led him
subsequently to imbibe the most gloomy religious views and to bury
himself in the Western wilderness. These reasons he had never fully
imparted to his family; but had necessarily made allusions to them which
had been treasured up and doubtless enlarged upon. At last one
descendant of the family determines to go to England with the purpose of
searching out whatever ground there may be for these traditions carrying
with him certain ancient documents and other relics; and goes about the
country half in earnest and half in sport of fancy in quest of the old
family mansion. He makes singular discoveries all of which bring the
book to an end unexpected by everybody and not satisfactory to the
natural yearnings of novel readers. In the traditions that he brought
over there was a key to some family secrets that were still unsolved
and that controlled the descent of estates and titles. His influence upon
these matters involves [him] in divers strange and perilous adventures;
and at last it turns out that he himself is the rightful heir to the
titles and estate that had passed into another name within the last
half-century. But he respects both feeling that it is better to make a
virgin soil than to try to make the old name grow in a soil that had been
darkened with so much blood and misfortune as this.
_April 27th. Tuesday_.--It was with a delightful feeling of release from
ordinary rules that Middleton found himself brought into this connection
with Alice; and he only hoped that this play-day of his life might last
long enough to rest him from all that he had suffered. In the enjoyment
of his position he almost forgot the pursuit that occupied him nor might
he have remembered for a long space if one evening Alice herself had
not alluded to it. "You are wasting precious days" she suddenly said.
"Why do not you renew your quest?"
"To what do you allude?" said Middleton in surprise. "What object do you
suppose me to have?"
Alice smiled; nay laughed outright. "You suppose yourself to be a
perfect mystery no doubt" she replied. "But do not I know you--have not
I known you long--as the holder of the talisman the owner of the
mysterious cabinet that contains the blood-stained secret?"
"Nay Alice this is certainly a strange coincidence that you should
know even thus much of a foolish secret that makes me employ this little
holiday time which I have stolen out of a weary life in a wild-goose
chase. But believe me you allude to matters that are more a mystery to
me than my affairs appear to be to you. Will you explain what you would
suggest by this badinage?"
Alice shook her head. "You have no claim to know what I know even if it
would be any addition to your own knowledge. I shall not and must not
enlighten you. You must burrow for the secret with your own tools in
your own manner and in a place of your own choosing. I am bound not to
assist you."
"Alice this is wilful wayward unjust" cried Middleton with a flushed
cheek. "I have not told you--yet you know well--the deep and real
importance which this subject has for me. We have been together as
friends yet the instant when there comes up an occasion when the
slightest friendly feeling would induce you to do me a good office you
assume this altered tone."
"My tone is not in the least altered in respect to you" said Alice. "All
along as you know I have reserved myself on this very point; it being
I candidly tell you impossible for me to act in your interest in the
matter alluded to. If you choose to consider this unfriendly as being
less than the terms on which you conceive us to have stood give you a
right to demand of me--you must resent it as you please. I shall not the
less retain for you the regard due to one who has certainly befriended me
in very untoward circumstances."
This conversation confirmed the previous idea of Middleton that some
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