Shakespeare, will pause with suspended oar to hear its silver chimes. If the founder of that fountain had been capable of a selfish thought he could have taken no way better or more certain than this for the perpetuation of his name in the affectionate esteem of one of the loveliest places and one of the most sedate communities in the world. [Illustration: _Mary Arden's Cottage._] Autumn in England--and all the country ways of lovely Warwickshire are strewn with fallen leaves. But the cool winds are sweet and bracing, the dark waters of the Avon, shimmering in mellow sunlight and frequent shadow, flow softly past the hallowed church, and the reaped and gleaned and empty meadows invite to many a healthful ramble, far and wide over the country of Shakespeare. It is a good time to be there. Now will the robust pedestrian make his jaunt to Charlecote Park and Hampton Lucy, to Stoneleigh Abbey, to Warwick and Kenilworth, to Guy's Cliff, with its weird avenue of semi-blasted trees, to the Blacklow Hill,--where sometimes at still midnight the shuddering peasant hears the ghostly funeral bell of Sir Piers Gaveston sounding ruefully from out the black and gloomy woods,--and to many another historic haunt and high poetic shrine. All the country-side is full of storied resorts and cosey nooks and comfortable inns. But neither now nor hereafter will it be otherwise than grateful and touching to such an explorer of haunted Warwickshire to see, among the emblems of poetry and romance which are its chief glory, this new token of American sentiment and friendship, the Fountain of Stratford. CHAPTER XIV BOSWORTH FIELD