FROM LONDON TO NEW YORK. 213 



bright Sunday morning, when the ground was white 

 with a dense hoar-frost. The great church, as I ap- 

 proached it, loomed up under the sun through a bank 

 of blue mist. The Avon was like glass, with little 

 wraiths of vapor clinging here and there to its surface. 

 Two white swans stood on its banks in front of the 

 church, and, without regarding the mirror that so drew 

 my eye, preened their plumage ; while farther up, a 

 piebald cow reached down for some grass under the 

 brink where the frost had not settled, and a piebald 

 cow in the river reached up for the same morsel. 

 Rooks and crows and jackdaws were noisy in the trees 

 overhead and about the church spire. I stood a long 

 while musing upon the scene. 



At the birthplace of the poet, the keeper, an elderly 

 woman, shivered with cold as she showed me about. 

 The primitive, home-made appearance of things, the 

 stone floor much worn and broken, the rude oak beams 

 and doors, the leaden sash with the little window panes 

 scratched full of names, among others that of Walter 

 Scott, the great chimneys where quite a family could 

 literally sit in the chimney corner, etc., were what I 

 expected to see, and looked very human and good. 

 It is impossible to associate anything but sterling qual- 

 ities and simple, healthful characters with these early 

 English birthplaces. They are nests built with faith- 

 fulness and affection, and through them one seems to 

 get a glimpse of devouter, sturdier times. From Strat- 

 ford I went back to Warwick, thence to Birmingham, 



