John and Betty's History Visit Part 11

They followed their guide over a stile, across a field where the smell of new-mown hay was sweet, through some bars, and finally along a narrow, rough path on a steep bank close to the Avon. This was the beginning of the Weir Brake, where Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway may perhaps have done their courting, as Mrs. Pitt suggested.

The Avon is narrow at this point, and flows rather swiftly. The sunset sky was reflected in its waters, which were overshadowed by willow trees, rushes, and ferns. On the bank was a tangle of underbrush and wild flowers, and above, the great trees,--the elms, of which Shakespeare so often speaks. As they rambled on and on, the trees seemed to grow larger, and more and more gnarled and picturesque.

"Oh! Can't you just see t.i.tania and Oberon and all the other fairies dancing here and playing games about these trees! It looks exactly like a stage-setting for 'As You Like It' or 'Midsummer Night's Dream,'" exclaimed Betty, who was fascinated with what she saw. The evening was just dark enough to produce a weird but beautiful effect of shadows under the elm trees.

"I'm rejoiced that it appeals to you so, Betty!" cried Mrs. Pitt.

"That's just as I always feel! It seems as though you could actually touch spots of which Shakespeare must have been thinking when he wrote certain pa.s.sages. And it is a fact that he did often have this or similar places in mind; for, although the scene of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was supposed to be in Greece, Shakespeare allowed his characters and his entire background to be as absolutely English as he was himself. You know that in olden times, the Forest of Arden covered much of Warwickshire; even these old trees with which we are now surrounded, are remnants of that splendid woodland which is so familiar to us through Shakespeare. It was surely in just such a scene that t.i.tania and the other fairies danced, and where Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and the rest came to practice their play,--those so-called Athenians, who were so exactly like Stratford tradesmen of Shakespeare's day. Certainly it was under just such trees that Hermia, and Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius wandered!

"And see there where those branches touch the water," she soon continued; "might not that have been the very place where poor Ophelia lost her life? Listen!

'There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his h.o.a.r leaves in the gla.s.sy stream;'

Isn't that a perfect description of this very spot? And then:

'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows,--'

Just see the violets all about us here! There are the 'pale cowslips,' too! Do you see? Oh, it's wonderful,--wonderful to find so many of the very flowers which Shakespeare loved and talked of so much!--the daisy, the musk-rose and woodbine! There's some right by your foot, Betty. But come, come, we really must go now! We'll go back by the field above, where it is not so steep and dark. Come, John!"

So they hurriedly retraced their steps toward the town. In skirting the fields on the hill-top, they once had to pick their way with some difficulty through holes in bristling hedges, and Mrs. Pitt and the girls were forced to run away from a buck, but these were little incidents to which they were all quite equal, and they arrived at the Red Horse Hotel, nothing daunted, just as the dinner-gong sounded loudly.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A DAY IN WARWICKSHIRE

Betty did spend the evening "writing letters in Washington Irving's room at the Red Horse," as she had planned. It was in that quaint, tiny parlor that Irving wrote his well-known paper about Stratford-on-Avon, and perhaps Betty hoped to benefit by the literary atmosphere. At any rate, the letters were accomplished with great ease and rapidity, after her curiosity had been satisfied by an examination of the room.

Washington Irving's armchair is there, and the old poker with which he is said to have tended the fire. On the walls hang the pictures of a number of actors and actresses who have played Shakespearean parts.

Except for these, the room differs very little from the rest of the inn. About nine-thirty, the children started up to bed, Betty, enthusiastic at the prospect of a high four-poster, which "you really have to run and give a jump to get into." She and Barbara did not stay long awake to enjoy it, however, for it seemed as though their heads had hardly touched the pillows before the maid was calling them, and the bright sun was pouring in at the windows.

Very early they set out to walk "across the fields to Anne." The little village of Shottery, where stands the cottage known all the world over as "Anne Hathaway's," is only about a mile distant from Stratford, and our party gayly took the path through the fields,--perhaps the very one over which Shakespeare trod when he was Anne's lover. This led them first past the "back-yards" of Stratford, then over a stile and through the green meadows, where daisies and cowslips abound. As they went along, Mrs. Pitt repeated to them the following little verse from Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale":

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a; A merry heart goes all the way, Your sad tires in a mile-a."

The boys learned this, and half-chanted, half-sang it over and over while they all kept time to the rhythm.

"There's Shottery, I guess!" Betty called, interrupting the singers, as she caught sight of a pretty little group of thatched-roofed cottages. "It seems a very short 'mile-a,' doesn't it!"

Anne Hathaway's cottage is even more picturesque than its neighbors, or does this only seem so because of the a.s.sociations which it has for all? Every one knows the picture of the cottage. One end stands close to the country road, and in front of it, behind a green hedge, is the garden. Growing on the cottage walls are at least half a dozen different kinds of roses, as well as honeysuckle and jasmine, which clamber way up and mingle with the heavy thatch. The old cas.e.m.e.nt-windows with their thick panes of gla.s.s were swung open to let in the morning's fresh air. A young girl dressed in pink and carrying a broom, appeared on the doorstep as Philip opened the gate.

She was evidently rather surprised to see such early visitors, but she said they might go in. While Mrs. Pitt paused to speak with her, Betty, who had already rushed inside, called out: "Here's the old settle! I know it from its pictures!"

Sure enough, there it was, close beside the great fireplace,--we hope just where it has always been ever since Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare sat there together.

"But, Mother, is that really the same bench, and did Anne truly live here?" questioned the all too matter-of-fact Barbara.

"My dear daughter," began Mrs. Pitt, feigning great severity; "banish that thought immediately! Just for one little hour we are going to know that Anne did live here,--that Will said 'Will you?' and Anne said 'I will,' right on this very bench. I quite refuse to listen to any doubts on the subject for to-day! You write our names in the book, please, Philip. I'm going to rest myself here in Anne's rocking-chair!"

The girl with the broom looked at her visitor in a puzzled way, and began,--"But, lady, I brought that chair here with me only----" But Mrs. Pitt quickly interrupted her, asking some trifling question. Her illusions were not to be disturbed, it seemed, and the girl beat a retreat.

"Well, Mother," said Philip, "you aren't the only one who has ever believed in the house! Here in this old Visitors' Book are the names of d.i.c.kens, Longfellow, Holmes, General Grant, Edwin Booth, Mary Anderson, and----"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DID ANNE TRULY LIVE HERE?"--_Page 164._]

"Never mind the rest, Phil; if General Grant said so, it's true! He knew what he was talking about!" And so John settled the question.

A flag-stone floor is all this little room can boast of, and a low ceiling of huge timbers, but it has an air of homelikeness and cosy comfort, nevertheless. At the windows are flowers which nod to their cousins out in the garden; some gray knitting usually lies on the table; and there is the huge fireplace with all its cranes, different hooks, pots and kettles; and the crowning glory of all, the old oak settle, upon which every visitor religiously seats himself.

"Isn't there any upstairs?" demanded John, before many minutes.

"Oh, yes! May we go up, please?" Mrs. Pitt asked of the attendant.

"Yes, thank you; I know the way, and I'll be careful."

So they climbed the rickety stairs, and saw a little bedroom under the eaves, in which stands an old, very forlorn-looking "four-poster."

"I'm so glad that tiresome, truthful person let us come up alone,"

said Mrs. Pitt, panting. "If she had come, too, I could not have explained that this was Anne's bedroom. She used to sit by this window and dream about Will, and watch for his coming, too. She----"

"Don't spoil it all, Mother," pleaded Barbara. "Perhaps it really was her room!"

"And didn't I just say as much?" her mother laughed. "But seriously!

This room never appealed to me as does the one below. Anne couldn't have been very comfortable up here. If she was tall, she could hardly have stood up straight because of the slanting roof."

So laughingly, they went downstairs and toward the patch of bright yellow sun-flowers in the farthest corner of the garden. The young girl followed them. "Shall I point out the different flowers?" she timidly inquired.

They were duly shown the "rosemary for remembrance," the "pansies for thoughts," and a great many others of Shakespeare's loved flowers. The view of the cottage from the group of tall sun-flowers is most charming. There is surely nothing in the world more picturesque than a thatched-roof.

Arrived once again at the Red Horse, they all packed up their belongings, and Mrs. Pitt went over to the station with a boy, who wheeled the luggage. When the suit-cases were duly labeled "Leamington," and the station-master had received his tip of a shilling, to insure his remembering them, Mrs. Pitt returned to the hotel, where she found five bicycles lined up. At sight of her, the rest came running out. "This is great!" cried John, already astride one of the bicycles, and impatient for the start.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Pitt, much pleased by the enthusiasm. "I thought this would be rather better than driving out to Charlecote and back, and then taking the train to Leamington. I know the roads, and am delighted at riding once more! I had my divided-skirt with me, you see, in case of this very emergency. You girls will manage somehow; your skirts are fairly short." This was to Barbara and Betty, and then they were off.

The ride of about four miles to Charlecote seemed all too short, for, as Betty expressed it, "the roads are so smooth and level that I can't stop. My wheel just goes of itself!" They first came in sight of Charlecote Park, where there are still great numbers of deer. As the party pa.s.sed, the graceful creatures rose from the tall gra.s.s, making an extremely pretty picture. They tried in vain to coax them to the fence.

"Deer in Shakespeare's time must have been tamer, or he couldn't have stolen one," observed John knowingly.

"Isn't the 'Tumble-down Stile' near here, Mother?" Barbara questioned.

"Yes, it's just beyond this turn in the road. There it is now! So long as we are believing all we see to-day, I feel quite justified in telling you that when the youthful Shakespeare was escaping with his deer on his shoulders, he fled by way of this stile. Touch that top rail, John, and see what will happen. No, this end of the rail!"

As John put his hand on the place which Mrs. Pitt designated, that end gave way and hit the three other rails, so that they also bent down to the ground. John was much amused, and repeated the motion again and again.

"Did Shakespeare fall over that stile when he was trying to climb it with the deer, and did they catch him then?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes, that's the story, and, of course, we know it is true! Now, come this way to the gatehouse. I was able to get permission, through an influential friend, to take you inside. I am so glad, for not every one has such good fortune. This woodland," motioning to the fine old oaks, as they sped along, "is also a part of the ancient Forest of Arden. That wood was so dense in this county in the thirteenth century, that the King ordered the Constable of Warwickshire to cut down six acres in breadth between Warwick and Coventry, to insure the greater safety of travelers."

They were now getting distant glimpses of the fine Elizabethan residence itself. It was built in 1558, the year of Elizabeth's accession to the throne, and was made in the general shape of the letter E, in honor of that Queen. The color of the ancient bricks has been softened and beautified by the hand of Time, which has also caused heavy vines to grow upon, and in certain places, almost to cover the walls. The different courts, gateways, and gables, are therefore most picturesque. The present owner, a descendant of the Sir Thomas Lucy whom Shakespeare knew and ridiculed, permits visitors (the privileged few) to see the Great Hall and the library.