Look at that brow!"
"But he isn't like a swan, is he?" Gregory asked.
"Of course not," said the old man. "That's poetry. If he had been like a
swan, it wouldn't have been poetry to call him one."
Gregory pondered for a little while. Then he asked: "Would it be poetry to
call a swan a Shakespeare?"
"Oh, Gregory, come away," said Janet; "you're too clever this morning!"
Hester, however, still had much to do, and she refused to go until she had
laid some flowers also on Anne Hathaway's tomb and on that of Susanna,
Shakespeare's daughter, who married Dr. Hall. She also copied the epitaph,
which begins:
"Witty above her sexe, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall."
But I am going too fast, for this was Monday morning, and we have not yet
accounted for all of Sunday. The only Shakespeare relic which they visited
that day was the site of his house, New Place, close to the hotel. The
house, of course, should be standing now, and would be, but for the
behaviour of a deplorable clergyman, as you shall hear. Shakespeare, grown
rich, and thinking of returning to Stratford from London, bought New Place
for his home; he died there in 1616, and his wife and daughter, or his
descendants, lived in it for many years after.
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