"Just seven days," returned that damsel, leaning dangerously out of the compartment window. "Guess I'm about living for that tour. If we don't have the time of our lives, I'm much mistaken. Ta-ta till next Tuesday."
Diana enjoyed the quiet week at Windermere with father, mother, and brother, and though the little circle was not quite complete—for there was a brother of seventeen at school in America—it was delightful to be among her own family again. Mr. Hewlitt was very tired after his long spell of arduous work in Paris, and was glad to rest his brains, so they spent most of the time boating on the lake, or strolling in the woods, getting new-made-over in the fresh, bracing country air. The car they had hired was to meet them at Lancaster. They went thus far south by train, then motored to Liverpool. Loveday, ready with suit-case packed, was eagerly expecting them. From the window of her aunt's drawing-room she watched the big six-seater car arrive at the door. Giles—a masculine edition of Diana, in spectacles—was driving. Lenox—a beaming khaki-clad figure with twinkle-some brown eyes—sat by his side. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt and Diana were in the rear seat. A goodly pile of boxes and baskets was strapped on to the luggage-carrier behind. A change of places was effected, resulting in the two girls sitting with Giles in the front. Loveday's suit-case was stowed away, her aunt waved good-bye, the electric-starter was applied, and the car moved off on its eventful journey south.
It was a delightful way of travelling, to whiz along by road instead of by rail. The country was just in the blush of spring, the woods were bursting into tender leaf, plum blossom made fairy lace-work in wayside orchards, and wallflowers and cowslips bloomed in cottage gardens. Giles, who drove the car, had planned out their tour carefully. He was determined to see rural England to best advantage, and, instead of keeping always to the main roads, he intended to take by-ways, so as to pass through typical country villages. Once free from the suburbs of Liverpool, they avoided large towns as far as possible, as they made their way through Cheshire to the Midlands. Their first object was that Mecca of all American pilgrims—the Shakespeare country.
"In five days we haven't time to look at everything as we go along, so I guess we'd better just sprint till we get to Kenilworth, and start our sight-seeing there," decreed Giles.
He made an excellent chauffeur, and fortunately encountered no police traps, though he certainly exceeded the speed limit when he saw a clear road ahead. A lunch-basket with thermos flasks was packed in the car, and the party picnicked for their mid-day meal in a wood where primroses were opening their little pale-yellow flowers, and king-cups blazed in a marshy ditch. The air was fresh with spring, and cuckoos were calling from the fields by a river.
"When I was a small girl," said Loveday, "I thought there was only one cuckoo in the world. People used to say: 'Oh, have you heard the cuckoo yet?' so, of course, I thought there was only one. Nobody said: 'Have you seen the swallow yet?' when swallows returned. I was fearfully puzzled one day when I heard two cuckoos both cuckooing at once."
They reached Kenilworth just at sunset, when a crimson sky was flaming behind the old castle, and glowing on the windows of the picturesque cottages that faced the ancient ruin from the other side of the village green. Its grey walls, magnificent even in their decay, seemed teeming with historic memories, and, in the glamour of the sunset, they could almost, in imagination, restore the half-legendary splendour of its later days, and picture Queen Elizabeth arriving there on her famous visit to the Earl of Leicester. It was too late to do any exploring that evening, so, after a halt to admire the beauty of the scene, they went on to their hotel, promising themselves to make it the first object of their sight-seeing to-morrow.
"It seems so extraordinary," said Mr. Hewlitt at dinner, "that every little bit of ground we're passing over now has a history that dates right back to the Middle Ages. It's a wonderful corner of England, and so unspoilt. Half of the houses look as if they'd stepped straight out of an artist's canvas."
For the next few days the party lived with guidebooks in their hands. They thoroughly explored Kenilworth Castle, tried to call up a vision of the pageant that was presented before Queen Elizabeth there, and deplored the tragic fate of poor Amy Robsart. Then the car splashed through the ford at the foot of the wood, and carried them along the Warwick Road, past Blacklow Hill, where Piers Gaveston was executed, and where, it is said, his restless spirit still rides at drear midnight, to Guy's Cliff, with its old Saxon mill and romantic view of the Avon. Then on to Warwick, to look at the treasures of a castle fortunately untouched by the ravages of war, and the beautiful Beauchamp Chapel, with its tomb of the "King Maker". They could have stayed a long time in ancient, picturesque Warwick, admiring the quaint, old houses and the smooth stretches of the river, but the attractions of Stratford lay only eight miles away, and they had booked their rooms in advance at the hotel there. None of them ever forgot their first entry into Shakespeare's town. It was the season of his anniversary, and in his honour flags decorated the black-and-white houses, and dainty little maidens, with May garlands of flowers, came tripping down the sixteenth-century streets. Our pilgrims did their devoirs in orthodox fashion, beginning with Shakespeare's birthplace and its museum of relics, going on to the Grammar School where he learned his "little Latin and less Greek", to the remains of his house "New Place", and his tomb and monument in the glorious old church. They could hardly tear themselves away from Anne Hathaway's thatched, half-timber cottage at Shottery, with its carved, four-post Elizabethan bedstead, its garden full of rustic flowers, and its ingle-nook where perhaps Shakespeare sat to woo.