It was curious, since the object of Mr. Erin’s adoration has taken such pains to instil gentleness and feeling among his fellow-creatures, that his disciple should have harboured the sentiments he sometimes expressed; and yet it is hardly to be wondered at when one remembers that the advocates of Christianity itself have fallen into the same error, and from the same cause. Mr. Samuel Erin was not only a devotee, but a fanatic.
As the coach crossed the river, near their journey’s end, Mr. Dennis broke a long silence by a reference to the beauty of the scenery, which his friend had come professionally to illustrate.
‘Here is a pretty bit of river for your pencil, Mr. Erin.’
‘Hush! hush!’ rejoined that gentleman reprovingly; ‘it is the Avon. We are on the threshold of his very birthplace.’
It was on the tip of Mr. Dennis’s tongue, who had been thinking of nothing but Margaret for the last half-hour, to inquire, ‘Whose birthplace?’—which would have lost him the other’s friendship for ever. Fortunately he recollected himself (and Shakespeare) just in time, and in some trepidation at his narrow escape, which his friend took for reverential awe, murmured some more suitable reply.
William Henry, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. At the instigation of the guard (who had a commission from the innkeeper on the guests he brought him), he leant down from the coach-top to inquire which house Mr. Erin meant to patronise, suggesting that the party should put up at the ‘Stratford Arms,’ as being the best accommodation.
‘You fool!’ roared the old gentleman; ‘we put up at the “Falcon,” of course. The idea,’ he continued indignantly, ‘of our going elsewhere, when the opportunity is afforded us of residing under the very roof which once sheltered our immortal bard!’
‘Shakespeare did not live in an inn, did he, uncle?’ inquired Margaret demurely. She knew perfectly well that he had not done so, but was unwilling to let this outburst against her cousin pass by without some kind of protest.
‘Well, no,’ admitted Mr. Erin; ‘but he lived just opposite to it, and, it is supposed—indeed, it may be reasonably concluded—that he patronised it for his—ahem—convivial entertainments.’
‘I suppose there is some foundation for the story of the “Topers” and the “Sippers,”’ observed Dennis, ‘and for the bard being found under the crab-tree _vino et somno_.’