gardener was digging in the gravelly soil. He received us with a grave
and kindly air; but when we asked if we could look into the house,
he said, with a sturdy faithfulness, that his orders were that no one
should see it, and continued his digging without heeding us further.

Somewhat abashed we retraced our steps; we got one glimpse of the fine
indented front, with its shapely wings and projections. I should like
to have seen the great parlour, and the tapestry-room with the story of
Samson that bothered Rossetti so over his work. I should like to have
seen the big oak bed, with its hangings embroidered with one of Morris's
sweetest lyrics:

"The wind's on the wold,
And the night is a-cold."

I should like to have seen the tapestry-chamber, and the room where
Morris, who so frankly relished the healthy savour of meat and drink,
ate his joyful meals, and the peacock yew-tree that he found in his days
of failing strength too hard a task to clip. I should like to have
seen all this, I say; and yet I am not sure that tables and chairs,
upholsteries and pictures, would not have come in between me and the
sacred spirit of the place.

So I turned to the church. Plain and homely as its exterior is, inside
it is touched with the true mediaeval spirit, like the "old febel
chapel" of the Mort d'Arthur. Its bare walls, its half-obliterated
frescoes, its sturdy pillars, gave it an ancient, simple air. But I did
not, to my grief, see the grave of Morris, though I saw in fancy the
coffin brought from Lechlade in the bright farm-waggon, on that day of
pitiless rain. For there was going on in the churchyard the only thing I
saw that day that seemed to me to strike a false note; a silly posing
of village girls, self-conscious and overdressed, before the camera of a
photographer--a playing at aesthetics, bringing into the village life
a touch of unwholesome vanity and the vulgar affectation of the world.
That is the ugly shadow of fame; it makes conventional people curious
about the details of a great man's life and surroundings, without
initiating them into any sympathy with his ideals and motives. The price
that the real worshippers pay for their inspiration is the slavering
idolatry of the unintelligent; and I withdrew in a mournful wonder from
the place, wishing I could set an invisible fence round the scene, a
fence which none should pass but the few who had the secret and the key
in their hearts.

And here, fo