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"I was put into another room, two doors away from what was Dame Crowl's chamber, after her death, and this thing happened the night before Squire Chevenix came to Applewale. "The room I was in now was a large square chamber, covered wi' yak pannels, but unfurnished except for my bed, which had no curtains to it, and a chair and a table, or so, that looked nothing at all in such a big room.
Its height is six feet four inches to the key of the vault, and decorated with a shield bearing the arms of the deceased. Before the revolution, the same shield, decorated the three pannels of the base of the monument. We may still perceive the trace of the destroyers chisel. The entire height of the mausoleum is seventeen feet.
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell the huge antique pannels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher.
The workmanship of the rooms being all good and just out of the workman's hands, the joints of the flooring and of the pannels of the wainscoting are all true and tight; the more so as the walls, perhaps not yet thoroughly dry, preserve a dampness in the air of the room which keeps the woodwork swelled and close: the doors and the sashes too being worked with truth, shut with exactness, so that the room is perfectly tight, no passage being left open for the air to enter except the key-hole, and even that is frequently closed by a little dropping shutter.
No bits but snaffles all, of birch their saddles be, Much fashioned like the Scottish seates, broad flakes to keepe the knee From sweating of the horse, the pannels larger farre And broader be then ours, they vse short stirrups for the warre: For when the Russie is pursued by cruel foe, He rides away, and suddenly betakes him to his boe, And bends me but about in saddle as be sits, And therewithall amids his race his following foe he hits.
The pannels were beautifully painted, and the arched top or tilt supported by gilded caryatides at the four corners. Its curtains and cushions were of fine purple cloth; and altogether, though far less convenient, it was a much gayer and more sumptuous looking vehicle than the perfection of modern coach building.
In that country they ride upon bullocks, having pannels fastened with girths, and guide them with bridles. In summer, the journey from Bijanagur to Goa takes only eight days; but we went in July, which is the middle of winter in that country, and were fifteen days in going to Ancola, on the sea coast. On the eighth day of the journey I lost both my bullocks.
Then I told how good she was to all her grand-children, having us to the great-house in the holydays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the Twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost rubbed out sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells around me or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings, I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children.
The wails of the room itself were waincsotted in pannels of dark-stained wood; the window-curtains were of coarse green worsted, and encrusted with dust so ancient and irremovable, that it presented almost a lava-like appearance; the carpet that had once been bright and showy, was entirely threadbare, and had become grey with age.
So much had they addicted themselves to wicker-work, prompted by the ingenuity of the Indians, who assisted them, that when I viewed the Englishmen's colonies, they seemed at a distance as though they had lived like bees in a hive: for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious and sober man, had made himself a tent of basket-work round the outside; the walls were worked in as a basket, in pannels or strong squares of thirty-two in number, standing about seven feet high: in the middle was another, not above twenty-two paces round, but much stronger built, being of an octagonal form, and in the eight corners stood eight strong poles, round the top of which he raised a pyramid for the roof, mighty pretty, I assure you, and joined very well together, with iron spikes, which he made himself; for he had made him a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows and charcoal for his work, forming an anvil cut of one of the iron crows, to work upon, and in the manner would he make himself hooks, staples, spikes, bolts, and hinges.
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