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, were what I expected to see, and looked very human and good.  It is impossible to associate anything but sterling qualities and simple, healthful characters with these early English birthplaces.  They are nests built with faithfulness and affection, and through them one seems to get a glimpse of devouter, sturdier times.

From Stratford I went back to Warwick, thence to Birmingham, thence to Shrewsbury, thence to Chester, the old Roman camp, thence to Holyhead, being intent on getting a glimpse of Wales and the Welsh, and maybe taking a tramp up Snowdon or some of his congeners, for my legs literally ached for a mountain climb, a certain set of muscles being so long unused.  In the course of my journeyings, I tried each class or compartment of the cars, first, second, and third, and found but little choice.  The difference is simply in the upholstering, and, if you are provided with a good shawl or wrap-up, you need not be particular about that.  In the first, the floor is carpeted and the seats substantially upholstered, usually in blue woolen cloth; in the second, the seat alone is cushioned; and in the third, you sit on a bare bench.  But all classes go by the same train, and often in the same car, or carriage, as they say here.  In the first class travel the real and the shoddy nobility and Americans; in the second, commercial and professional men; and in the third, the same, with such of the peasantry and humbler classes as travel by rail.  The only annoyance I experienced in the third class arose from the freedom with which the smokers, always largely in the majority, indulged in their favorite pastime. (I perceive there is one advantage in being a smoker:  you are never at a loss for something to do,—­you can smoke.)

At Chester I stopped overnight, selecting my hotel for its name, the “Green Dragon.”  It was Sunday night, and the only street scene my rambles afforded was quite a large gathering of persons on a corner, listening, apparently with indifference or curiosity, to an ignorant, hot-headed street preacher.  “Now I am going to tell you something you will not like to hear, something that will make you angry.  I know it will.  It is this:  I expect to go to heaven.  I am perfectly confident I shall go there.  I know you do not like that.”  But why his hearers should not like that did not appear.  For my part, I thought, for the good of all concerned, the sooner he went the better.