AM SHAKESPEARE]

I have on several occasions been to the Shakespeare
country, approaching it from different directions, but each time I am set
down at Leamington. Perhaps this is by some Act of Parliament--I really
do not know; anyway, I have ceased to kick against the pricks and now
meekly accept my fate.

Leamington seems largely under subjection to that triumvirate of
despots--the Butler, the Coachman and the Gardener. You hear the jingle
of keys, the flick of the whip and the rattle of the lawnmower; and a
cold, secret fear takes possession of you--a sort of half-frenzied
impulse to flee, before smug modernity takes you captive and whisks you
off to play tiddledywinks or to dance the racquet.

But the tram is at the door--the outside fare is a penny, inside it's
two--and we are soon safe, for we have reached the point where the Leam
and the Avon meet.

Warwick is worth our while. For here we see scenes such as Shakespeare
saw, and our delight is in the things that his eyes beheld.

At the foot of Mill Street are the ruins of the old Gothic bridge that
leads off to Banbury. Oft have I ridden to Banbury Cross on my mother's
foot, and when I saw that sign and pointing finger I felt like leaving
all and flying thence. Just beyond the bridge, settled snugly in a forest
of waving branches, we see storied old Warwick Castle, with Caesar's Tower
lifting itself from the mass of green.

All about are quaint old houses and shops, with red-tiled roofs, and
little windows, with diamond panes, hung on hinges, where maidens fair
have looked down on brave men in coats of mail. These narrow, stony
streets have rung with the clang and echo of hurrying hoofs; the tramp of
Royalist and Parliamentarian, horse and foot, drum and banner; the stir
of princely visits, of mail-coach, market, assize and kingly court.
Colbrand, armed with giant club; Sir Guy; Richard Neville, kingmaker, and
his barbaric train, all trod these streets, watered their horses in this
river, camped on yonder bank, or huddled in this castle yard. And again
they came back when Will Shakespeare, a youth from Stratford, eight miles
away, came here and waved his magic wand.

Warwick Castle is probably in better condition now than it was in the
Sixteenth Century. But practically it is the same. It is the only castle
in England where the portcullis is lowered at ten o'clock every night and
raised in the morning (if the coast happens to be clear) to tap of drum.