He looked at me keenly, as I stood looking out of the back window, my thoughts all with Mary Arden, and he said, in a low voice, “You love him, too,” and I said, “Yes.”
A little shaken by the Birthplace, but of no mind to admit it, we went gayly through the Stratford streets, passing groups of Happy Villagers, and so suddenly did we meet the Avon, that we almost fell into it. We chanced upon two broad marble steps that seemed to be the terminal of a macadamized path to the river.
The Avon was using the lower of these two steps, so we sat on the upper one and watched the children sailing boats upon the Memorial Stream. This brought to my mind Mr. Mabie’s word picture of Shakespeare at four years old, and for a time the baby Shakespeare took precedence over the man poet.
It is scarcely fair that the Avon should be so beautiful of itself, for this, with its vicarious interests, makes it too blessed among rivers.
At the chancel.
Then we went to Holy Trinity. The approach, plain as way to parish church, seemed like a solemn ceremony, and, as Tommy afterward admitted, “it got on his nerves.”
Unbothered by verger or guide, oblivious to tourists, if any were there, we walked straight to the chancel, looked at Shakespeare’s grave,—and walked away.
It was fortunate for me at this moment that I had taken Sentimental Tommy with me; for, as his emotions are so much more available than mine, so he has them under much better control.
I had expected to look around the church a bit, but Tommy led me away, through the old graveyard, to the low wall by the river. And there, under the waving old trees, we sat until we could pick up our lost three hundred years.