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.

And then it was bought by the Rev.Francis Gastrell, a Cheshire vicar, who began by cutting down Shakespeare's mulberry tree--under which not only the poet had sat, but also Garrick--because he was annoyed that visitors wished to see it; and then, a little later, in his rage at the demand for the poor rate (a tax to help support the workhouse, which, since he was living elsewhere, he considered he ought not to have to pay), he pulled down the building too.

That was in 1759, and now the site of the house is a public garden where you may walk and still see of this memorable habitation only the traces of some of the walls and Shakespeare's well.
They found the old gentleman from the hotel in the garden reading his guidebook, and it was he who told them the story.