"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare To dig the dust enclosed here; Bleste be ye man yt spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones."
Under such anathema the body has slept securely. A sexton once looked in at the bones, but did not dare to touch them, lest his "quietus" should be made with a bare bodkin.
From the church door we mounted our carriage; and crossing the Avon on a bridge which the lord mayor of London built four hundred years ago, we start on one of the most memorable rides of our life. The country looked fresh and luxuriant from recent rains. The close-trimmed hedges, the sleek cattle, the snug cottages, the straggling villages with their historic inns, the castle from whose park Shakspeare stole the deer, the gate called "Shakspeare's stile," curious in the fact that it looks like ordinary bars of fence, but as you attempt to climb over, the whole thing gives way, and lets you fall flat, righting itself as soon as it is unburdened of you; the rabbits darting along the hedges, undisturbed, because it is unlawful, save for licensed hunters, to shoot, and then not on private property; the perfect weather, the blue sky, the exhilarating breeze, the glorious elms and oaks by the way,—make it a day that will live when most other days are dead.
At two o'clock we came in sight of Kenilworth Castle. Oh, this is the place to stir the blood. It is the king of ruins. Warwick is nothing; Melrose is nothing, compared with it. A thousand great facts look out through the broken windows. Earls and kings and queens sit along the shattered sides of the banqueting halls. The stairs are worn deep with the feet that have clambered them for eight hundred years. As a loving daughter arranges the dress of an old man, so every season throws a thick mantle of ivy over the mouldering wall. The roof that caught and echoed back the merriment of dead ages has perished. Time has struck his chisel into every inch of the structure. By the payment of only three-pence you find access to places where only the titled were once permitted to walk. You go in, and are overwhelmed with the thoughts of past glory and present decay. These halls were promenaded by Richard Coeur de Lion; in this chapel burned the tomb lights over the grave of Geoffrey de Clinton; in these dungeons kings groaned; in these doorways duchesses fainted. Scene of gold, and silver, and scroll work, and chiseled arch, and mosaic. Here were heard the carousals of the Round Table; from those very stables the caparisoned horses came prancing out for the tournament; through that gateway strong, weak, heroic, mean, splendid, Queen Elizabeth advanced to the castle, while the waters of the lake gleamed under torchlights, and the battlements were aflame with rockets; and cornet, and hautboy, and trumpet poured their music on the air; and goddesses glided out from the groves to meet her; and from turret to foundation Kenilworth trembled under a cannonade, and for seventeen days, at a cost of five thousand dollars a day, the festival was kept. Four hundred servants standing in costly livery; sham battles between knights on horseback; jugglers tumbling on the grass; thirteen bears baited for the amusement of the guests; three hundred and twenty hogsheads of beer consumed, till all Europe applauded, denounced and stood amazed.
Where is the glory now? What has become of the velvet? Who wears the jewels? Would Amy Robsart have so longed to get into the castle had she known its coming ruin? Where are those who were waited on, and those who waited? What has become of Elizabeth, the visitor, and Robert Dudley, the visited? Cromwell's men dashed upon the scene; they drained the lakes; they befouled the banquet hall; they dismantled the towers; they turned the castle into a tomb, on whose scarred and riven sides ambition and cruelty and lust may well read their doom. "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MIDNIGHT LECTURE.
At eight o'clock precisely, on consecutive nights, we stepped on the rostrum at Chicago, Zanesville. Indianapolis, Detroit, Jacksonville, Cleveland and Buffalo. But it seemed that Dayton was to be a failure. We telegraphed from Indianapolis, "Missed connection. Cannot possibly meet engagement at Dayton." Telegram came back saying, "Take a locomotive and come on!" We could not get a locomotive. Another telegram arrived: "Mr. Gale, the superintendent of railroad, will send you in an extra train. Go immediately to the depot!" We gathered up our traps from the hotel floor and sofa, and hurled them at the satchel. They would not go in. We put a collar in our hat, and the shaving apparatus in our coat pocket; got on the satchel with both feet, and declared the thing should go shut if it split everything between Indianapolis and Dayton. Arriving at the depot, the train was ready. We had a locomotive and one car. There were six of us on the train—namely, the engineer and stoker on the locomotive; while following were the conductor, a brakeman at each end of the car, and the pastor of a heap of ashes on Schermerhorn street, Brooklyn. "When shall we get to Dayton?" we asked. "Half-past nine o'clock!" responded the conductor. "Absurd!" we said; "no audience will wait till half-past nine at night for a lecturer."
Away we flew. The car, having such a light load, frisked and kicked, and made merry of a journey that to us was becoming very grave. Going round a sharp curve at break-neck speed, we felt inclined to suggest to the conductor that it would make no especial difference if we did not get to Dayton till a quarter to ten. The night was cold, and the hard ground thundered and cracked. The bridges, instead of roaring, as is their wont, had no time to give any more than a grunt as we struck them and passed on. At times it was so rough we were in doubt as to whether we were on the track or taking a short cut across the field to get to our destination a little sooner. The flagmen would hastily open their windows and look at the screeching train. The whistle blew wildly, not so much to give the villages warning as to let them know that something terrible had gone through. Stopped to take in wood and water. A crusty old man crawled out of a depot, and said to the engineer, "Jim, what on earth is the matter?" "Don't know," said Jim; "that fellow in the car yonder is bound to get to Dayton, and we are putting things through." Brakes lifted, bell rung, and off again. Amid the rush and pitch of the train there was no chance to prepare our toilet, and no looking-glass, and it was quite certain that we would have to step from the train immediately into the lecturing hall. We were unfit to be seen. We were sure our hair was parted in five or six different places, and that the cinders had put our face in mourning, and that something must be done. What time we could spare from holding on to the bouncing seat we gave to our toilet, and the arrangements we made, though far from satisfactory, satisfied our conscience that we had done what we could. A button broke as we were fastening our collar—indeed, a button always does break when you are in a hurry and nobody to sew it on. "How long before we get there?" we anxiously asked. "I have miscalculated," said the conductor; "we cannot get there till five minutes of ten o'clock." "My dear man," I cried, "you might as well turn round and go back; the audience will be gone long before ten o'clock." "No!" said the conductor; "at the last depot I got a telegram saying they are waiting patiently, and telling us to hurry on." The locomotive seemed to feel it was on the home stretch. At times, what with the whirling smoke and the showering sparks, and the din, and rush, and bang, it seemed as if we were on our last ride, and that the brakes would not fall till we stopped for ever.