“But you know it now belongs to the nation,” Mrs. Pitt explained, “and is always kept in perfect condition. The last restoration was finished only about fifty or sixty years ago. Although the house was so completely renewed, the greatest care was used to make it look as nearly as possible as it did at the time of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564. That window above the entrance, with the little diamond panes, is the original, and is in the room in which the Poet was born.”
Going under the old porch and through the door with its high threshold, our friends found themselves in the family living-room of the house. It is low and rather dark, and has whitewashed walls and an earthen floor. This was in all probability the kitchen and dining-room as well, and one is reminded of the fact by a huge fireplace which juts out into the room. In olden times this would have been filled with great pots and kettles hanging over the fire on cranes. The chimney is deep enough and wide enough to have two little seats within it—one on either side. John quickly bent down and seated himself where he could look straight up the chimney and see a square patch of blue sky.
When Mrs. Pitt saw him, she smiled and said, “No doubt, Shakespeare himself, when he was a small boy, often sat right there with his brothers and sisters. It must have been very pleasant on cold winter evenings, to creep into these ‘inglenooks,’ as they were called, beside the great blazing fire, and tell stories. I think the children should have felt themselves very lucky to have such delightfully warm quarters!”
From a small entry at the rear of this room, the narrow winding stairs lead to the floor above. Before going up, Mrs. Pitt wrote their names in the huge Visitors’ Book. Betty was much pleased to find, while carelessly turning its pages, the name of a girl friend who had been in England the previous summer.
“How queer that I should see Evelyn’s name!” she exclaimed; “but I guess almost everybody who visits England comes to this house.”
“Aye! We ’ave thousands of visitors ’ere every year, Miss, and the most of ’em are Americans, it do appear to me! They do be powerful fond o’ Shakespeare!” The attendant shook his head knowingly as he gave Betty this information.
One of the most interesting rooms in the whole world is that chamber on the second floor in which the great Shakespeare was born. In itself, it is not in any way remarkable; it contains but a chair or two, and an old table, which holds a bust of the Poet. But its plaster walls, low ceiling, and even its window-panes, are inscribed with the names of great people,—poets, authors, statesmen, men of all countries, occupations, and beliefs,—who have journeyed here to pay their tribute to the greatest of all poets and writers.
“Whenever I meet people who believe that Lord Bacon or any other man wrote Shakespeare’s plays, I never discuss the question with them, for I have no arguments to withstand their claims,” said Mrs. Pitt intently. “I only remind myself that if such men as Browning, Thackeray, Kean, Scott, and Carlyle, who have all left their signatures here, believed that the ‘immortal Shakespeare’ wrote his own plays, I can feel safe in believing so, too. Therefore I want you to understand, children, that you are standing in the room where Shakespeare was born, and be glad all your lives when you remember that you have seen it.”
The other room on the second floor—a kind of attic—contains an important picture of Shakespeare. It is called the “Stratford Portrait,” as it was discovered in that native town, and it is now thought to have been painted in the eighteenth century, from a bust.
The Shakespeare house is double. In the other half, which is now a museum, John Shakespeare, the father of the Poet, used to have his shop and carry on his trade, or trades, for, like many people at that time, he had several. This museum now contains many relics of Shakespeare, which are more or less authentic, as well as a large number of First Editions of his plays. The young people were interested in an old desk, much scratched and marred, which it is supposed that the Poet used when at the Guild School. It is not clear whether it was when he was a pupil there, or at the time he was “Junior Master,” as he is thought to have been by some. The desk is long and narrow, having but one little opening into which a hand could be reached to pull out the books. It occurred to John that it would have been a very convenient place to hide apples or pickles, or any such forbidden articles, as the master could never even suspect their existence in that dark interior.