A lovely morning.--Antiquated mansion.--Its lady.--Ancestral
effigies.--Collection of animals.--Serene evening.--Owls.--Expected
dreams.
Falmouth, March 8, 1787.
What a lovely morning! how glassy the sea, how busy the fishing-boats,
and how fast asleep the wind in its old quarter! Towards evening,
however, it freshened, and I took a toss in a boat with Mr. Trefusis,
whose territories extend half round the bay. His green hanging downs
spotted with sheep, and intersected by rocky gullies, shaded by tall
straight oaks and ashes, form a romantic prospect, very much in the
style of Mount Edgcumbe.
We drank tea at the capital of these dominions, an antiquated mansion,
which is placed in a hollow on the summit of a lofty hill, and contains
many ruinous halls and never-ending passages: they cannot, however, be
said to lead to nothing, like those celebrated by Gray in his Long
Story, for Mrs. Trefusis terminated the perspective. She is a native of
Lausanne, and was quite happy to see her countryman Verdeil.
We should have very much enjoyed her conversation, but the moment tea
was over, the squire could not resist leading us round his improvements
in kennel, stable, and oxstall: though it was pitch-dark, and we were
obliged to be escorted by grooms and groomlings with candles and
lanterns; a very necessary precaution, as the winds blew not more
violently without the house than within.
In the course of our peregrination through halls, pantries, and
antechambers, we passed a staircase with heavy walnut-railing, lined
from top to bottom with effigies of ancestors that looked quite
formidable by the horny glow of our lanterns; which illumination, dull
as it was, occasioned much alarm amongst a collection of animals, both
furred and feathered, the delight of Mr. Trefusis’s existence.
Every corner of his house contains some strange and stinking inhabitant;
one can hardly move without stumbling over a basket of puppies, or
rolling along a mealy tub, with ferrets in the bottom of it; rap went my
head against a wire cage, and behold a squirrel twirled out of its sleep
in sad confusion: a little further on, I was very near being the
destruction of some new-born dormice--their feeble squeak haunts my ears
at this moment!
Beyond this nursery, a door opened and admitted us into a large saloon,
in the days of Mr. Trefusis’s father very splendidly decorated, but at
present exhibiting nothing, save damp plastered walls, mouldering
floors, and cracked windows. A well-known perfume issuing from this
apartment, proclaimed the neighbourhood of those fragrant animals, which
you perfectly recollect were the joy of my infancy, and presently three
or four couple of spanking yellow rabbits made their appearance. A
racoon poked his head out of a coop, whilst an owl lifted up the gloom
of his countenance, and gave us his malediction.
My nose having lost all relish for _rabbitish_ odours, took refuge in my
handkerchief; there did I keep it snug till it pleased our conductors to
light us through two or three closets, all of a flutter with Virginia
nightingales, goldfinches, and canary-birds, into the stable. Several
game-cocks fell a crowing with most triumphant shrillness upon our
approach; and a monkey--the image of poor Brandoin--expanded his jaws in
so woful a manner, that I grew melancholy, and paid the hunters not half
the attention they merited.
At length we got into the open air again, made our bows and departed.
The evening was become serene and pleasant, the moon beamed brilliantly
on the sea; but the owls, who are never to be pleased, hooted most
ruefully.
Good night: I expect to dream of _closed-up doors_,[12] and haunted
passages; rats, puppies, racoons, game-cocks, rabbits, and dormice.