“Yet it must have been a likeness,” ventured Caput. “It was seen and approved by his daughters.”
We persisted in our infidelity, and refused to look again at the smirking horror. When it was set up in the mortuary pillory overhead, it was colored from nature. The hair, Vandyke beard, and moustache were auburn, the tight, protuberant eyes hazel, the dress red and black. Seventy years afterward, it was painted white and was probably a shade less odious for the whitewashing. Lately the colors have been restored to their pristine brightness and varnish.
Another flat slab bears the inscription:—
“Heere lyeth interred the body of Anne, Wife
of William Shakespeare who dep’ted this life the
6th day of Avgt · 1623 · being of the age of · 67 · yeares.”
She was a woman of twenty-five, he a lad of eighteen when they were married,—a circumstance that dampens the romantic imaginings we would fain foster to their full growth, in visiting the vine-draped cottage of Anne Hathaway. We put from us, while standing by the graves of husband and wife, the truth that when he, a hale, handsome gentleman of fifty-three, sat at eventide in the shadow of the mulberry-tree, or, as tradition paints him, leaned upon the half-door of a mercer’s shop and made impromptu epigrams upon passing neighbors,—Anne was a woman of sixty, who had best abide in-doors after the dew began to fall.
We went to the Red Horse Inn by merest accident. We must lunch somewhere, having grown ravenously hungry even in Stratford-on-Avon, and left the choice of a place to the driver of our waggonette. Five minutes’ rattling drive over the primitive pavements between the rows of quaint old houses, and we were in a covered passage laid with round stones. A waiter had his hand upon the door by the time we stopped; whisked us out before we knew where we were, and into a low-ceiled parlor on the ground-floor, looking upon the street. A lumbering mahogany table was in the middle of the floor. Clumsy chairs were marshalled against the wainscot. Old prints hung around the walls. The carpet was very substantial and very ugly. A subtle intuition, a something in the air of the room—maybe, an unseen Presence, arrested me just within the door. I had certainly never been here before, yet I stood still, a bewilderment of reminiscence and association enveloping my senses, like fragrant mist.
“Can this be”—I said slowly, feeling for words—“Geoffrey Crayon’s Parlor?”
I tell the incident just as it occurred. Not one of us knew the name of the inn. Our guide-books did not give it, nor had one of the party bethought him or herself that Washington Irving had ever visited Stratford or left a record of his visit. None of the many tourists who had described the town to us had mentioned the antique hostelry. What followed our entrance came to me,—a “happening” I do not attempt to explain.
The waiter did not smile. English servants consider the play of facial muscles impertinent when addressing superiors. But he answered briskly, as he had opened the carriage-door.
“Yes, mem! Washington Irving’s parlor! Yes, mem!”