FullReads

The park contains many hundred acres, and is as beautiful as an English park can be, and this is praise superlative. Flocks of sheep wander over the soft, green turf, and beneath the spreading trees are sleek cows which seem used to visitors, and with big, open eyes come up to be petted.

Occasional signs are seen: “Please spare the trees.” Some people suppose that this is an injunction which Mr. Gladstone himself has never observed. But when in his tree-cutting days, no monarch of the forest was ever felled without its case being fully tried by the entire household. Ruskin, once, visiting at Hawarden, sat as judge, and after listening to the evidence gave sentence against several trees that were rotten at the core or overshadowing their betters. Then the Prime Minister shouldered his faithful “snickersnee” and went forth as executioner.

I looked in vain for stumps, and on inquiry was told that they were all dug out, and the ground leveled so no trace was left of the offender.

The “lady of the house” at Hawarden is the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. All accounts agree that she is a most capable and excellent woman. She is her father’s “home secretary” and confidante, and in his absence takes full charge of the mail and looks after important business affairs. Her husband, the Reverend Harry Drew, is rector of Hawarden Church. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Drew and found him very cordial and perfectly willing to talk about the great man who is grandfather to his baby. We also talked of America, and I soon surmised that Mr. Drew’s ideas of “The States” were largely derived from a visit to the Wild West Show. So I put the question to him direct:

“Did you see Buffalo Bill?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And did Mr. Gladstone go?”

“Not only once, but three times, and he cheered as loudly as any boy.”

The Gladstone residence is a great, rambling, stone structure to which additions have been made from one generation to another. The towers and battlements are merely architectural appendiculae, but the effect of the whole, when viewed from a distance, rising out of its wealth of green and backed by the forest, is very imposing.

I entered only the spacious front hallway and one room–the library. Bookshelves and books and more books were everywhere; several desks of different designs (one an American roll-top), as if the owner transacted business at one, translated Homer at another, and wrote social letters from a third. Then there were several large Japanese vases, a tiger-skin, beautiful rugs, a few large paintings, and in a rack a full dozen axes and twice as many “sticks.”

The whole place has an air of easy luxury that speaks of peace and plenty, of quiet and rest, of gentle thoughts and calm desires.

As I walked across toward the village, the church-bell slowly pealed the hour; over the distant valley, night hovered; a streak of white mist, trailing like a thin veil, marked the passage of the murmuring brook. I thought of the grand old man over whose domain I was now treading, and my wonder was, not that one should live so long and still be vigorous, but that a man should live in such an idyllic spot, with love and books to keep him company, and yet grow old.