In Unfamiliar England / A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.

by Thos. D. Murphy

WHITTINGTON CASTLE, SHROPSHIRE.

A longing for a farewell glimpse of Warwickshire comes upon us as we leave Ludlow on the afternoon of the following day; and what pleasanter memory could we choose for the closing days of our long pilgrimage in England than a flight through the charming country that lies at her very heart? True, we will pass over roads that we have traversed before, but could one ever weary of Stratford and Warwick and Coventry, and of the quiet Midlands that lie about them?

We pause for one last look at the cathedral at Worcester, its great tower of warm red stone standing sharp against the cloudless sky; it is altogether one of the most perfect in proportion and design of all the churches in the Island. Then we hasten through the summer landscape—its prevailing green dashed with the pale gold of the yellowing harvests—to Droitwich and through Alcester, with its dull-red brick and black-oak beams, into the now familiar streets of Stratford-on-Avon. We pause at the busy souvenir store of which two years before the white-haired mayor was proprietor; but he has since retired, his successor tells us. As one of the notables of the town, he points out Miss Corelli, the novelist, who has made her home in Stratford and waxed rich through much advertising, which sometimes assumed forms highly distasteful to her fellow-townsmen. For it chanced that one Andrew Carnegie would present a handsome library building to Stratford should the town provide a suitable site, but for some reason Miss Corelli objected, and by engaging the plan in some of the endless legal quibbles possible in England, she defeated it. The mayor was vexed beyond measure and when the attorney for Miss Corelli interrogated him,

“Did you not say that you would give a thousand pounds to get Miss Corelli out of Stratford?”

“I have never said so,” replied his honor, “but though a thousand pounds does not grow on a gooseberry bush for me, I really believe I would.”

This retort so irritated the authoress that she brought an action for libel and was awarded a farthing damages. But this bit of gossip hardly accords with the spirit of Stratford at the coming of twilight, when the low sun flashes on the still bosom of the immemorial Avon and pierces the gloom beneath the great trees that cluster around the church.

We come here again from Coventry on the following day to join the worshipers in the fane where sleeps the Master of English Letters. It is a perfect day and the large light-toned windows lend an air almost of cheerfulness to the graceful interior of Stratford Church, and the great organ fills it with noble melody. With such surroundings, perhaps we miss much of the sermon—at least we can recall nothing of it in the lapse of time—but the memories that come back to us now are of the mingled feelings of reverence and inspiration that dominated us during the hour we lingered.

As we leave the church—our car has stood by the roadside the while—an intelligent little fellow approaches us, urging his services as guide, and he looks so longingly at the car that we take him in. In all our wanderings about Stratford, and hardly a highroad or byway has escaped us, we have missed the old cottage where Mary Arden is said to have lived. Is said to have lived—alas, that hypothetical “said” that flings its blight over so many of our sacred shrines. But what matters it, after all? What mattered it to the pious votary of olden time that the relics of his revered saint, so fraught with comfort and healing to him, turned out to be the bones of a goat? There shall be no question for us on this perfect day of English summer that the low gray walls and sagging dull-red tile roof of the cottage before us once sheltered the mother of Shakespeare. It stands behind a low stone wall, in the village of Wilmcote, two or three miles from Stratford, a blaze of old-fashioned flowers in front of it and creepers and rose vines clamber over its gray walls. It is only a farmhouse tenement now, but with the old buildings grouped about it and its dovecot, it makes a picture well suited to the glamour that legend throws about the place. Our small guide eagerly points it out and proposes to seek admittance for us; but we desire no such disenchantment as this would likely bring. We ask him to point the way to Shottery, for we wish a final glimpse of Anne Hathaway’s cottage, whose authenticity is only a shade better attested than that of the home of Mary Arden.