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Bruges is nothing to the Thesigers' garden in Canterbury Close." I'd time to take it all in, for Viola kept me waiting. I was glad of the peace of the garden, for I'd taken in more atmosphere than I wanted already as I came through the house. You went upstairs to the Canon's library, and along a narrow black-oak corridor. And in passing I was aware of a peculiar quietness everywhere.
But just as it was all but finished, father stopped me, saying that it would bring too many people around the barn. I then asked permission to put it on the top of a black-oak tree near the house.
In the hall giving sound advice, perhaps, to a newly fledged tragedian sat some dear, gray-haired old gentleman in white socks who puffed silently at a long cigar, while from out the low-ceiled, black-oak dining room, resplendent in pewter and hazy with tobacco smoke, came intermittent outbursts of laughter.
Hark, she thought she heard a bird sing in a far off, dreamy way, and for a moment she made mud pies in the back yard of the hut on the mountain, under the black-oak in the yard, with the glint of soft sunshine over everything and the murmur of green leaves in the trees above, as the wind from off the mountain went through them, and the anemone, and bellworts, and daisies grew beneath and around.
Hardy's picturesque novel, "Far from the Madding Crowd," the shearers shear in a cathedral-like barn, on a shining black-oak floor, probably for purposes of contrast. Round the ranch, however, shearers preferred very generally the low wooden tables.
Take one ounce of best Spanish indigo, finely powdered, and half a pound of oil of vitriol; put them in a bottle, and let them stand in the sun a week; shake it often, but do not cork it tight, lest it should burst the bottle; take four pounds of black-oak bark, and the same of hickory, shave them fine, and soak them till wet through; then boil them in ten gallons of water till all the color is extracted; when take out the chips, put in a pound of alum; shake the bottle of indigo and vitriol, and pour it in; let them boil together a few minutes, and put in the yarn; turn it over several times, and let it boil half an hour; then spread it out in the sun for about an hour, and wash it well in strong soap-suds through two waters, to keep it from becoming tender.
Still, through the peaceful morning air comes the loud, clear, cheery call of the Bob White a note that has in it health and vigor for the healing of many a tired heart. As for the cuckoo, well, his mate is guarding those bluish-green eggs in the apology for a nest built in the lower branches of a young black-oak; they will not be hatched until the very last of the month.
It was panelled with black-oak, of which the floor also was composed, giving the whole an aspect calculated to infect the most thoughtless spirit with gloom. Two high and very narrow windows, the small panes of which were quite incrusted with dust, were the only conductors of light, with the exception of a loophole for it could scarcely be dignified by the name of casement on the western side.
There is an air about the place that puts one at ease the brick floor, the hewn logs that support the ceiling and frame in the pictures of English country life around the walls, the big, comfortable, black-oak chairs, and the open fireplace, before which spins a roasting goose or turkey. "Yes, you bet we strike some queer merchants on the road, boys," said the children's clothing man.
The Governor sat at the head of the big black-oak table in his big stately library. The large lamps on either end of the table stood in old cloisonné vases of dull rich reds and bronzes, and their shades were of thick yellow silk. The light they cast on the six anxious faces grouped about them was like the light in Rembrandt's picture of The Clinic. It was a very important meeting indeed.
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