Loitering in Pleasant Paths. Marion Harland
you will have the goodness to sit down, and tell us what it all means!”
I had read the story thirty years before in a bound volume of the “New York Mirror,” itself then, at least ten years old. But it came back to me almost word for word, (what we read in those days, we digested!) as I sat there, the sceptre upon my knee, and rehearsed the tale to the circle of listeners.
Since our return to America I have hunted up the old “Mirror,” and take pleasure in transcribing a portion of Mr. Willis’ pleasant story of the interview between himself and the landlady who remembered Mr. Irving’s visit.
“Mrs. Gardiner proceeded: ‘I was in and out of the coffee-room the night he arrived, mem, and I sees directly, by his modest ways and his timid look, that he was a gentleman, and not fit company for the other travellers. They were all young men, sir, and business travellers, and you know, mem, ignorance takes the advantage of modest merit, and after their dinner they were very noisy and rude. So I says to Sarah, the chambermaid, says I, ‘that nice gentleman can’t get near the fire, and you go and light a fire in number three, and he shall sit alone, and it shan’t cost him nothing, for I like the looks on him.’ Well, mem, he seemed pleased to be alone, and after his tea he puts his legs up over the grate, and there he sits with the poker in his hand till ten o’clock. The other travellers went to bed, and at last the house was as still as midnight, all but a poke in the grate, now and then, in number three, and every time I heard it I jumped up and lit a bed-candle, for I was getting very sleepy, and I hoped he was getting up to ring for a light. Well, mem, I nodded and nodded, and still no ring at the bell. At last I says to Sarah, says I, ‘Go into number three and upset something, for I am sure that gentleman has fallen asleep.’ ‘La, ma’am!’ says Sarah, ‘I don’t dare.’ ‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘I’ll go!’ So I opens the door and I says—‘If you please, sir, did you ring?’ little thinking that question would ever be written down in such a beautiful book, mem.”
(She had already showed to her listeners “a much-worn copy of the Sketch-Book,” in which Mr. Irving records his pilgrimage to Stratford.)
“He sat with his feet on the fender, poking the fire, and a smile on his face, as if some pleasant thought was in his mind. ‘No, ma’am,’ says he, ‘I did not.’ I shuts the door and sits down again, for I hadn’t the heart to tell him it was late, for he was a gentleman not to speak rudely to, mem. Well, it was past twelve o’clock when the bell did ring. ‘There!’ says I to Sarah, ‘thank heaven he has done thinking, and we can go to bed!’ So he walked up stairs with his light, and the next morning he was up early and off to the Shakspeare house. …
“There’s a Mr. Vincent that comes here sometimes, and he says to me one day—‘So, Mrs. Gardiner, you’re finely immortalized! Read that!’ So the minnit I read it I remembered who it was and all about it, and I runs and gets the number three poker, and locks it up safe and sound, and by and by I sends it to Brummagem and has his name engraved on it; and here you see it, sir, and I wouldn’t take no money for it.”
Mr. Willis was in Stratford-on-Avon in 1836. In 1877 the “sceptre” was displayed to us, as I have narrated, as one of the valuable properties of the Red Horse Inn, although good Mrs. Gardiner long ago laid down her housekeeping keys forever.
We sat late over the luncheon served in the parlor, which could not have been refurnished since Irving “had his tea” there, too happy in the chance that had brought us to the classic chamber to be otherwise than merry over the stout bill, one-third of which should have been set down to Geoffrey Crayon’s account. The Britons are thorough utilitarians. Nowhere do you get “sentiment gratis.”
We drove home in the summer twilight, that lasts in the British Isles until dawn, and enables one to read with ease until ten o’clock P.M. Our road skirted the confines of Charlecote, the country-seat of the Lucys. The family was at home, and visitors were therefore excluded. It is a fine old place, but the park, which is extensive, looked like a neglected common after the perfectly appointed grounds of Stoneleigh Abbey, through which we passed. The fence enclosing the Charlecote domain was a sort of double hurdle, in miserable repair, and intertwisted with wild vines and brambles. The deer were gathered in groups and herds under oaks that may have sheltered their forefathers in Shakspeare’s youth. Scared by our wheels, rabbits scampered from hedge to coverts of bracken. If the fences were in no better state “in those ruder ages, when”—to quote Shakspeare’s biographer—“the spirit of Robin Hood was yet abroad, and deer and coney-stealing classed, with robbing orchards, among the more adventurous, but ordinary levities of youth,” the trespass for which the Stratford poacher was arraigned was a natural surrender to irresistible temptation, and the deed easily done.
CHAPTER VII.
Kenilworth.
WE never decided whether it was to our advantage or disappointment that we all re-read the novel of that name before visiting Kenilworth. It is certain that we came away saying bitterly uncharitable things of Oliver Cromwell, to whose command, and not to Time, is due the destruction of one of the finest castles in the realm. Caput, who, after the habit of amateur archæologists, never stirs without an imaginary surveyor’s chain in hand, had studied up the road and ruins in former visits, and acted now as guide and historian. We were loth to accept the country road, narrower and more rutty than any other in the vicinity, as that once filled by the stupendous pageant described by Scott and graver chroniclers as unsurpassed in costliness and display by any in the Elizabethan age. Our surveyor talked of each stage in the progress with the calm confidence of one who had made a part of the procession. We knew to a minute at what hour of the night the queen—having been delayed by a hunt at Warwick Castle—with Leicester at her bridle-rein, passed the brook at the bottom of Castle-hill. A stream so insignificant, and crossed by such a common little bridge, we were ashamed to speak of them in such a connection. The column of courtiers and soldiers thronging the highway was ablaze with the torches carried by Leicester’s men. The castle, illuminated to the topmost battlement, made so brave a show the thrifty virgin needed to feast her eyes often and much upon the splendid beauty of the man at her saddle-bow to console herself for having presented him with Kenilworth and the estates—twenty miles in circumference—pertaining thereunto.
All this was fresh in our minds when we alighted where Leicester sprang from his charger and knelt at the stirrup of his royal mistress in welcome to his “poor abode.” The grand entrance is gone, and most of the outer wall. There is no vestige of the drawbridge on which was stationed the booby-giant with Flibbertigibbet under his cloak. By the present gateway stands a stately lodge, the one habitable building on the grounds. “R. D.” is carved upon the porch-front, and within it, in divers places. Attached to this is a rear extension, so mean in appearance we were savagely delighted to learn that it was put up in Cromwell’s time. Passing these by the payment of a fee, and shaking ourselves free from the briery hold of the women who assaulted us with petitions to buy unripe fruit, photographs, and “Kenilworth Guides,” we saw a long slope of turf rising to the level, whereon are Cæsar’s and Leicester’s Towers, square masses of masonry, crumbling at top and shrouded, for most of their height, in a peculiarly tough and “stocky” species of ivy. The walls of Cæsar’s Tower—the only portion of the original edifice (founded in the reign of Henry I.) now standing—vary from ten to sixteen feet in thickness. Behind these, on still higher ground, are the ruins of the Great Hall, built by John of Gaunt. In length more than eighty feet, in width more than forty, it is, although roofless, magnificent. The Gothic arches of the windows, lighting it from both sides, are perfect and beautiful in outline. Ivy-clumps hang heavy from oriel and buttress. To the left of this is Mervyn’s, or the Strong Tower, a winding stair leading up to the summit. A broken wall makes a feint of enclosing the castle-grounds, seven acres in area, but it may be scaled or entered through gaps at many points. The moat down which the “Lady of the Lake,” floating “on an illuminated movable island,” seemed to walk on the water to offer Elizabeth “the lake,