Sometimes he
took the day for his rambles, wandering perhaps over Endicott's ancient
Orchard Farm and among the antique houses and grassy cellars of old
Salem village, the witchcraft ground; or losing himself among the pines
of Montserrat and in the silence of the Great Pastures, or strolling
along the beaches to talk with old sailors and fishermen. His tramps
along the Manchester and Beverly shores or from Marblehead to Nahant
were productive of such delicate tracings as "Footprints by the
Sea-shore," or the dream-autobiography of "The Village Uncle." "Grudge
me not the day," he says, in the former sketch, "that has been spent in
seclusion, which yet was not solitude, since the great sea has been my
companion, and the little sea-birds my friends, and the wind has told me
his secrets, and airy shapes have flitted around my hermitage. Such
companionship works an effect upon a man's character, as if he had been
admitted to the society of creatures that are not mortal." This touches
the inmost secret of those lonely, youthful years, which moulded the
pure-hearted muser with ethereal, unsuspected fingers. Elsewhere,
Hawthorne has given another glimpse into his interior life at this time:
"This scene came into my fancy as I walked along a hilly road, on a
starlight October evening; in the pure and bracing air I became all
soul, and felt as if I could climb the sky, and run a race along the
Milky Way. Here is another tale in which I wrapped myself during a dark
and dreary night-ride in the month of March, till the rattling of the
wheels and the voices of my companions seemed like faint sounds of a
dream, and my visions a bright reality.
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