WITHIN--THE HOUSEKEEPER--WINDOWS--INFORMATION--THE ORIEL--VIEW--
FLOOR--MILBURD'S INQUIRY--TYPICAL DEVELOPMENT--MATERIAL--AN EXAMPLE
--CRONE--POOR--MEDITATIONS--THE FRESCO--TAPESTRY--ARMOUR--MICE--RATS
--THE GHOST.
An old woman curtseys, and ushers our party into the Hall itself, which
is lofty and spacious, but in a mildewy condition.
The floor is partly stone partly tiles, as if the original designer had
been, in his day, uncertain whether to make a roof of it, or not.
A fine old chimney, with a hearth for logs, and dogs, is at one end, and
reminds me of retainers, deer hounds, oxen roasted whole, and Christmas
revels in the olden time.
The windows are diamond-paned. To open in compartments.
The old woman tells us that this was rebuilt in fifteen hundred and
fifty-two, and then she shows us into the drawing-room.
This is a fine apartment with an Oriel window, giving on to a lawn of
rank and tangled grass. Beyond this chaos of green, is a well timbered
covert, dense as a small black forest.
The distance between the trees becoming greater to the left of the
plantation, we obtain a glimpse of the lake which we passed on our road.
There is another grand fire-place in this room. The wainscot wants
patching up, and so does the parqueted floor.
The old woman tells us that "they say as Queen Elizabeth was once here."
Milburd asks seriously, "Do you recollect her, ma'am?"
The crone wags her head and replies "that it was afore her time."
Mentioning the word Crone to Boodels, I ask him what relation it bears
to 'Cronie.' "'Cronie,' almost obsolete now, means 'a familiar friend,'"
I explain to him. He says thank you, and supposes that the two words
have nothing in common except sound.
The notion being in fact part of my scheme for _Typical Developments_
(Vol. XIII. Part I. "_On sounds of words and their relation to one
another_"), I offer him my idea on the subject.
He asks, "What is it?"
_Happy Thought._--"Crone" is the feminine of "Cronie." "Cronie" is an
old friend, "Crone" is an old friend's old wife. Which sounds like a
sentence in one of my German Exercises. "The Old wife of the Old friend
met the Lion in the garden."
Boodels says "Pooh!" If he doesn't understand a thing at once he
dismisses it with "pooh." As I ascend the wide oak staircase, with room
enough for eight people abreast on every step, I reflect on the
foolishness of a man saying "pooh," hastily. How many great schemes
might anyone nip in the bud by one "pooh." What marvellous inventions,
apparently ridiculous in their commencing idea, would be at once knocked
on the head by a single "pooh." The rising Artist has an infant design
for some immense historical Fresco. He comes--I see him, as it were,
coming to Boodels to confide in him. "I mean," says he, "to show Peter
the Great in the right-hand corner, and Peter the Hermit in another,
with Peter Martyr somewhere else, ... in fact, I see an immense
historical subject of all the Celebrated Peters .... Then why not offer
it to St. Peter's at Rome, and why not ...?" "Pooh!" says Boodels, and
the artist perhaps goes off and drowns himself, or goes into business
and so is lost to the World. If I'd listened to Boodels' "Pooh," I
should never have got on so far as I have with my work on Typical
Developments. I hope to be remembered by this.
Milburd is calling me. Everyone in ecstasies. What wonderful old
chambers. Oak panels, diamond panes. Remains of tapestry, containing
probably a fine collection of moths. Old rusty armour on the walls.
Strange out-of-the-way staircases leading to postern-doors and offices.
Chilvern observes that it all wants doing up, and commences making plans
and notes in a book, which he takes from his pocket, in company with a
small ivory two-foot rule.
"Plenty of mice," says Cazell, looking at the old woman for
corroboration.
"Yes, in winter-time," she says.
"And rats?" inquires Milburd.
"I've met 'em on the stairs," replies the old lady, quite cheerfully.
"Ghosts, too?" suggests Boodels. [He has become somewhat melancholy of
late and says that he is studying the phenomena of "Unconscious
Cerebration," which Milburd explains is only a name for thinking of
nothing without knowing it. Boodels, in consequence, thinks Milburd a
mere buffoon.]
"Well, my husband," she answers in a matter-of-fact way, "my husband, he
see the Ghost... I think it were last Christmas twelvemonth."
"_The_ Ghost!" exclaims Boodels, much interested.
"Yes, the White Lady," says the old woman as pleasantly as possible.
"There's the marks on the floor of the stain where she was murdered.
There! that gentleman's standing on it."
Good gracious! so I am. A dull sort of mulberry-coloured stain. "It
won't wash out," she goes on. "I've tried it. And it won't plane out, as
they've tried _that_. And so," she finishes with a sniff, "there it is."
[Illustration]