The Slowcoach

CHAPTER 12

STRATFORD-ON-AVON

The next morning was dull, but dry, and they were ready early, for there were sixteen miles to be done before Stratford-on-Avon was reached. They were, however, easy miles, twelve of them being on the flat beside the Stour.

Mr. MacAngus had decided to stay on in those parts a little longer before making for Cropthorne, and therefore, after helping with the inspanning, as he called packing up, he said good-bye, but gave them a list of the places where it was worth while asking for him. They were sorry to lose him, but the immediate future was too exciting, with Stratford-on-Avon and Mrs. Avory in it, to allow time for regrets.

After a day entirely without any adventures they found Mrs. Avory. She was waiting for them at the Shakespeare Hotel, which is one of the most fascinating inns in England, with staircases and passages in lavish profusion, and bedrooms named after the plays. Hester and her mother slept in the "Winter's Tale," Janet and Mary in "Cymbeline." Robert and Gregory were "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" for the time being, and Horace and Jack lay in the "Comedy of Errors." Kink and Diogenes were somewhere at the back, and the Slowcoach was in the yard, surrounded by motor-cars.

At the next table at dinner—in a beautiful old room with green matting on the floor and a huge open fireplace—sat an old gentleman with white hair and bright eyes behind very luminous spectacles, and from the tone in which he talked to the waiter they guessed him to be an American. After dinner he smoked cigarettes in an immensely long holder of amber and gold, and now and then smiled at the children.

They were all rather tired, and went quickly to bed. Robert, who, you remember, had been so contemptuous of the Shakespeare Hotel blankets and sheets, slept a full ten hours; never, indeed, can a Gentleman of Verona have passed a better night; and the others expressed no grief at having to lie in proper beds once more.

When they came down to breakfast the next morning, they found a letter addressed to

Mr. KINK'S CHILDREN'S PARTY.
Shakespeare Hotel,
Stratford-on-Avon.

Robert looked at it, and threw it down.

"Very offensive," he said.

Mrs. Avory handed it to Janet.

"Whoever can it be from?" Janet asked, turning it over and over. "The postmark is Chiswick."

"A good way to find out," said Gregory, "is to open it."

Janet did so, and read it, laughing. "It's an attempt at a nasty letter from William," she said. "He's pretending to be cross because Jack won. Poor William! Listen:

DEAR LITTLE ONES,

"I hope you are having a good time in that stuffy caravan, and manage to avoid blisters. I thought you would like to hear that father has given me leave to go to Sheppey, and stay for three days with Mr. Fowler, who has promised to take me up in an aeroplane. I am also to have riding-lessons, and Aunt Mildred has promised me a pony, being so sorry to hear that I was done out of the caravan trip by a fluke. Uncle Jim has sent me 5 pounds. According to the papers the weather is going to break up directly. Your affectionate and prosperous friend,

WILLIAM ROTHERAM.

Jack was speechless with fury. "The story-teller!" he cried.

But Mary laughed. "I think it's rather clever," she said. "It almost took me in."

"Do you mean to say it's a good joke?" Jack asked.

"I think so," said Mary.

"I don't," said Jack. "I think jokes ought to be straightforward. I think you ought to know exactly that they are jokes."

"Miss Bingham," said Robert, "would say that such inventions were in poor taste."

"So they are," said Jack.

"Poor William!" said Mrs. Avory. "You oughtn't to be cross with him, Jack. After all, he did lose when you tossed up."

"Yes," said Jack. "But, look here, Mrs. Avory, suppose some of it's true."

At this they all roared, for it showed what Jack's trouble really was.

"Oh, Jack," said his sister, "you mustn't want everything. Even if it were true, you ought to be much happier here."

"Have some more coffee, Jack," Mrs. Avory said quickly.

As it was Sunday, they went to Trinity Church (which usually costs sixpence to enter, because of Shakespeare's tomb—a charge of which I am sure the poet would not approve). As the words in the sermon grew longer and longer, Hester made renewed efforts to get a glimpse of the tomb, but it was in a part of the chancel that was not within sight. She had instead to study the windows, which she always liked to do in church; and she found herself repeating the lines on the tomb, which she had long known:

"Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed heare:
Bleste be ye man Yt spares these stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones."

On Sunday, even after service, the church was not on view, but the next day it was there that they hurried directly after breakfast, Hester carrying with her some little bunches of flowers. They paid their sixpences, and made straight for Shakespeare's tomb, and stood before the coloured bust—that bust which you see in reproduction at every turn in this loyal town. It is perhaps more interesting than impressive, and the children had a serious argument over it, Jack even daring to say that the face was stupid-looking, and Gregory declining almost petulantly to consider Shakespeare in the least like a swan.

Poor Hester, how to defend him against these horrid boys!

Janet came to the rescue by saying that Jack was probably thinking that the forehead was too high; but a high forehead was a sign of genius.

"It may be so," said Jack, "but father has a poor patient with water on the brain just like that." (What can you do with people, who talk in this way?)

"But, of course," said Horace, "it doesn't matter what he looked like really, because he didn't write the plays at all. They were written by Roger Bacon."

This led to acute trouble.

"How can you say such wicked things!" Hester protested, bursting into tears.

"But I read it in a book," said Horace, who had not wished to hurt her, but still desired to serve the truth. "It was sent to father."

"Everything in books isn't true," said Janet.

"Oh, I say!" said Horace.

"Of course it's not," said Mary. "Books are always being replied to and squashed."

"Well, this book was by a Member of Parliament," said Horace.

This was very awkward for the defenders of Shakespeare. What were they to do?

Gregory, who had not seemed to be interested in the debate, settled it. He walked up to an old man who was standing near them, and asked him. "It isn't true," he said, "is it, that Shakespeare's works were written by Bacon?"

"No," said the old man, "it's a wicked falsehood."

"How do you know?" asked Horace.

"How do I know!" exclaimed the old man. "Why, I've lived at Stratford, man and boy, seventy years, and of course I know."

"Of course," said Janet.

"But a Member of Parliament says it was Bacon," Horace persisted.

"What's he Member for?" the old man asked. "Eh? Not for Stratford-on-Avon, I'll be bound."

"I don't know," said Horace, who had nothing else to say.

"Take my advice," the old man replied, "and don't believe anyone who says that Shakespeare wanted help. Look at that brow!"

"But he isn't like a swan, is he?" Gregory asked.

"Of course not," said the old man. "That's poetry. If he had been like a swan, it wouldn't have been poetry to call him one."

Gregory pondered for a little while. Then he asked: "Would it be poetry to call a swan a Shakespeare?"

"Oh, Gregory, come away," said Janet; "you're too clever this morning!"

Hester, however, still had much to do, and she refused to go until she had laid some flowers also on Anne Hathaway's tomb and on that of Susanna, Shakespeare's daughter, who married Dr. Hall. She also copied the epitaph, which begins:

"Witty above her sexe, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall."

But I am going too fast, for this was Monday morning, and we have not yet accounted for all of Sunday. The only Shakespeare relic which they visited that day was the site of his house, New Place, close to the hotel. The house, of course, should be standing now, and would be, but for the behaviour of a deplorable clergyman, as you shall hear. Shakespeare, grown rich, and thinking of returning to Stratford from London, bought New Place for his home; he died there in 1616, and his wife and daughter, or his descendants, lived in it for many years after. And then it was bought by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, a Cheshire vicar, who began by cutting down Shakespeare's mulberry tree—under which not only the poet had sat, but also Garrick—because he was annoyed that visitors wished to see it; and then, a little later, in his rage at the demand for the poor rate (a tax to help support the workhouse, which, since he was living elsewhere, he considered he ought not to have to pay), he pulled down the building too. That was in 1759, and now the site of the house is a public garden where you may walk and still see of this memorable habitation only the traces of some of the walls and Shakespeare's well.

They found the old gentleman from the hotel in the garden reading his guidebook, and it was he who told them the story. "So far as I can understand," said he, "nothing was done to the man at all. Nobody horsewhipped him. It was lucky it did not happen in America."

The old gentleman, whose name was Nicholas Imber, and who came from Philadelphia, then took them to see Harvard house, of which he, as an American, was very proud, and they drifted about with him, and looked at other of the old Stratford buildings.

All the time he kept on saying quietly to himself: "Vengeance on the Rev. Francis Gastrell!"

"Perhaps," said Hester, "there is a mistake in the verses in the church. Perhaps they ought to be:

"'Bleste be ye man yt spares these bones,
And curst be he yt moves my stones.'

That would mean the Rev. Francis Gastrell."

"I hope so," said Mr. Imber. "It's a very good idea. But why do you like Shakespeare so?"

"He's so wonderful," said Hester.

"Yes, but so is Scott, say, and Dickens."

"Oh, but Shakespeare's so beautiful, too," said Hester.

The children had gone alone to the church on the Monday morning. On returning to the hotel they found Mrs. Avory ready for them, and all started for the birthplace in Henley Street, where Shakespeare was born, probably on April 23, 1564. This is now a museum with all kinds of Shakespeare relics in it, profoundly interesting to Hester if not to the others. The desk at which he sat in the Grammar School is there; and his big chair from the Falcon Inn at Bidford; and many portraits; and on one of the windows, scratched with a diamond, is the name of Sir Walter Scott. The boys wanted to write their names, too, but it is no longer allowed; although I fancy that if Sir Walter Scott could visit Stratford again he would be permitted to break the rule.

They stood in the bedroom where Shakespeare was born, and where his father and mother probably died; and they looked into the garden where he used to play; and Horace very mischievously pointed out the fireplace in the kitchen where, as he told Hester, they cooked their bacon.

Mrs. Avory was then informed of the mean attacks on Shakespeare which Horace had made in the church, and their complete refutation by the old man, whose judgment she upheld.

"Horace," she said, "oughtn't to be here at all. He ought to be at St. Albans. We will look up the trains when we get back to the hotel."

Horace was not quite certain whether this was serious or not. "Why St. Albans?" he asked.

"Because that is where your friend Bacon lived," said Mrs. Avory.

The next place to visit was the Memorial, which is a very ugly building by the river, where the Festival is held every spring. This is not very interesting to children, being given up to books and pictures connected with the stage; but close by are the steps leading to the boats, each of which has a Shakespearian name, and Mrs. Avory allowed them to row about for an hour before lunch. This they did, Robert and Mary and Horace and Hester in the Hermione, and Janet and Gregory and Jack in the Rosalind.

After lunch, while they were waiting about in the hall looking at the pictures, and not quite sure what to do, Mr. Imber of Philadelphia approached them. "I wonder," he said, "if you would do me a favour. I have scores of nephews and nieces, and also many friends, in America, to whom I want to send picture postcards. Now," he continued, "listen here. Here's seven shillings, one for each of you; and here's a five-shilling piece. Now I am going to give you each a shilling to buy picture post cards with, and I want you each to buy them separately—in different shops if you like—and then bring them back to me, and I'll give the five-shilling piece to the one who has what I think the best collection. Now off you go."

So they hurried off. Stratford-on-Avon, I may tell you, exists almost entirely on the sale of picture postcards and Shakespeare relics, and there was therefore no difficulty in finding seven shops, each with a first-class assortment.

In this way an hour went very pleasantly, and then the results were laid before the old gentleman. Of course, there were many duplicates, but each collection had four or five cards that the others had not. After long consideration, Mr. Imber handed the five shillings to Mary.

Gregory's was the only really original collection, for, taking advantage of the circumstance that Mr. Imber had said nothing about the postcards being strictly of Stratford-on-Avon, he had bought only what pleased himself: all being what are called comic cards—dreadful pictures of mothers-in-law, and twins, and surprised lovers.

Mr. Imber laughed, and told him to keep them.

"Now," said Gregory, selecting a peculiarly vulgar picture of a bull tossing a red-nosed man into a cucumber frame, "I shall send this to Miss Bingham."

"Gregory!" exclaimed Janet; "you shall do nothing of the kind."

"Why not?" Gregory asked. "She'll only laugh, and say: 'How coarse!'"

"No," said Janet, "we'll take them back to the shop, and change them for nice ones."

"Oh, no, not all," Gregory pleaded. "Collins would love this one of the policeman with a cold pie being put into his hand by the cook behind his back."

"Very well," said Janet, "you may send her that, especially as we're getting her some pretty ones."

"Yes," said Gregory, "and Eliza must have this one of the soldier pushing the twins in the perambulator."

"Very well," said Janet, "but no others."

"Oh, yes," said Gregory, "there's Runcie. I'm sure she'd love this one of the curate being pulled both ways at once by two fat women. She's so religious."

After tea they walked to Shottery to see Anne Hathaway's cottage, although not even Hester could be very keen about the poet's wife. Hester, indeed, had it firmly in her head that she was not kind to him. "Otherwise," she said, "he would have left her his best bed instead of his second-best bed."

None the less Hester was very glad to have Mr. Imber's present of little china models of the cottage and the birthplace. To the others he gave either these or coloured busts of Shakespeare; and to Gregory an ivory pencil-case containing a tiny piece of glass into which you peeped and saw twelve views of Stratford-on-Avon.

After dinner they sat down to the serious task of writing on the picture postcards which they had bought for themselves, while Gregory earned sixpence by sticking stamps on Mr. Imber's vast supply. Jack felt it his duty also to write to William:

DEAR WILLIAM,

"Thanks for your very kind and informing letter. We are glad you are having such a good time. This is a rotten caravan, and you are well out of it. "Yours,

"J. R.

"P.S.—Don't fall off your clothes-horse too often."