The record-union., 1891-10-10

gestive of the one memory of the slum-
berous old town, speck the gray facades
with gilt and color.
Down one of these streets, old Henley
street, through whose windingS a glimpse
OF the uplandS is caught, you know is to
be found the house of all others in STRAIT
ford. But you turn in the opposite direc-
ton. You pass an ancient inn named
for the bard. Each of its rooms is given
the name OF some one of the characters
he created. Servants are higgle-haggling
with a rosy-faced huckster over the price
OF vegetables on its comfortable porch.
Old stone houses, with the Oldest Of
peaks, gables and pent-houses over huge
oaken doors, are passed. At some Old
men and women are nodding even in
these morning hours at the open Win
doWs. Soon there is vista of trees shut
ting out all beyond save a gray stone
porch. Without knowledge of Stratford
topography you have come with unerring
instinct straight to Holy Trinity Church
and graveyard. An ancient verger with
Snow-White hair is shuffling along the
leaf-strewn pavement. Ee pauses, and,
with loud jangling of his huge keys, he
unlocks the wicket, then the wide, low
oaken doors, and is shortly lost among
the shadows within. You steal softly
after him. Somewhere in the dim place
the old man is whistling, as if for COM
pany, in low tones, as become an old, old
man, but somehow it checks your i'm
pulse to enter, and you wander around
and around the shadowy shrine, halting at
last next the side Of the chancel nearest
where you know that Shakespeare lies.
You lay your hand gently on the old gray
stones as if cropping for the touch of near
but unseen friend. How long your rev.
cry has been you know not but tiny,
lconoclastic sparrow, scratching among
the gravel at your feet, looks so quizzi-
cally into your face that you hurry
ashamed away.
A few steps among the graves, beneath
huge elmS, bring YOU TO the river side, for
the Avon he loved laves the sides of the
churchyard walls. 1t is so still and silent
here that you feel the very spirit of the
stream is hushed in obeisance and rever-
ence for the spot its waters are passing.
On the farther side are long, lonesome
meadows. a few sheep are grazing there.
Up the stream to the right, above the
masses of trees and tiles, looms the huge,
obese Memorial Hall. You resent it as
you have already turned away from the
perky white fountain in mellow old
High street. Everything modern here
that seeks to memorialiZe men OF COM
mittees of to-day, through fantastic memo
rails to this very sun of the English race
and tongue, hurts you with its brazen
impertinence.
You turn, pass through the churchyard
and saunter along IN the quiet of Mill
Lane. AT its end is ramShackle mill
nobody knows how many centuries old.
The splash of the wheel has drowsy
sound. A foot-path leads TO a messy
wooden bridge. You cross this, take to
the meadows, with the river, church and
town TO your left, and cross the fields to
Shottery. Here is typical English viii
lage, criSs-crossed with stone walls, and
hedges cut in high box patterns, and
brown with thatched roofs, SO old that
birds and mice use them for nests, while
wild field flowers and weeds grow luXu-
riously upon them. Instinctively you APP
proach the Oldest and quaintest structure
in Shottery. Its gable overhangs the
lane. Its south side faces a maze of vines
and flowers, and four tiny windows,
hooded by the thatching, peep over into
the breeze and bloom. 1t is Ann Hath
away's cottage. A pleasant old woman,
whom you feel must have known the
maid and the man, hustles about; shows
you the interior; the ancient ''settle"
where the love-making was done; the
visitors book with its glorious priceless
autographs; even the heirlooms of linen,
more lasting than effigy or cenotaph of
stone, the while chatting cheerily. as if
the lids of time always opened upon her
as upon bright and stainless page. But
you have not heard what was said. The
autumn voices without. The voices you
have heard came trembling down the
SilenceS of more than 800 years, and your
heart has thrilled unutterably, because
for a moment, SO close have come that
day to this, those two to you.
Back across the Avon over the great
stone bridge, and q few minutes walk
brings you to humble Henley street.
There IS still the seeming of dream folk
walking about in the soft autumn air
There are few of them, and they seem
either very old or very young: quaint old
men and grandams, ruddy Of face and
white of hair, who seem to have stepped
out of the olden times to look around
their former hauntS for little and very
quiet children with demure old wavs.
y on wonder If the influence OF so surpass-
ing shrine goes this far among Strat-
ford dwe-lers, or whether it is the glamor
OF your own fancy. This, as you stand
before the birthplace of Shakespeare
spruce enough structure since its ''reSto-
ration" with gabled porch, an Eliza
bethan window in the next story, and a
peaked dormer window outjutting from
the steep pitched roof above, all with a
pretty garden at the sides and back. 1t
seems long time before the iangling bell
is answered. Finally another beaming
old lady appears, and you follow her
silently within. There is very little to
ScGy JilliIgS 10 lGtl. InGfc
are two rooms below and two above. One
of the latter is sort of museum, and you
find little interest here. In the other the
bard was born, which fact thrills you
most powerfully--that here first saw the
light OF day the great revealer OF human
ity to men, or that the once white wall is
black with the names of the great and
mighty of ali lands and climes, who have
come and reverently LETT these signs of
tribute to what was so Immortality re-
vealed?
Yet how little is there for simply the
eyes TO look upon-the interior OF a mod
est church of the thirteenth, fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, cruciform, with
central tower and splre, and aisles to the
nave only; narrow chancel inclining
strangely to the north; ancient oaken
pews with curiouSly-carved misereres be-
meath; west window representing the
twelve Apostles and our Lords baptism;
a clerestory beautifully imposed on the
arches below; a north chancel window,
the gift of Americans, illustrating. from
| las You Like It." the Seven Ages
of Man; few ancient sedilia or priests
seats; an entablature of stone in which
Is set the painted stone bust of pleasant
faced man with twirled mustache and
slight-pointed beard; and below a grave
With four lines of inscriptive supplication
that the dust and bones beneath shall
never be disturbed by mortal man. This
is all. Yet every day of every year men
and women, in increasing numbers, come
from the earth's remotest bounds, to
stand beside this silent but never voice
| less tomb.
| The day passes and the shadows length
en- among the lines. You shrink into a
corner beneath protecting pillar, and see,
still as in a dream, the motley throng,
| from peasant TO prince, come and go,
come and go. as if the great world-heart