eight o'clock in the morning
as one summer I stepped into his English home . `` Just come over the ferry to dine with you , '' I responded . After some explanation about the health of my family , which demanded a sea voyage , and thus necessitated my coming , we planned two or three excursions . At eight o'clock in the morning we gathered in the parlor in the Red Horse Hotel , at Stratford-on-Avon . Two pictures of Washington Irving , the chair in which the father of American literature sat , and the table on which he wrote , immortalizing his visit to that hotel , adorn the room . From thence we sallied forth to see the clean , quaint village of Stratford . It was built just to have Shakspeare born in .