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Priestly, we went over all the habitable and uninhabitable parts of the house: the banqueting room, with a most costly, frightful ceiling, and a chimneypiece carved up to the cornice with monsters, one with a nose covered with scales, one with human face on a tarantula's body.
Opposite, on the other wall, and close above the chimneypiece, so as to be kept dry, is the gun-rack with two double-barrels, a long single-barrel duck gun, and a cavalry sabre, worn once a year by a son of the house who goes out to training in the yeomanry.
Each of them was knighted before he was five-and-twenty years old, for prowess in the field. The portrait over the chimneypiece is the celebrated Judge Tempest, who was famous for Well, he did something wonderful, I know. Perhaps Mrs. Scobel remembers," concluded Mrs. Tempest, feebly. "It was at the trial of the seven bishops," suggested the Vicar's wife.
Bartolomeo clenched his fists and struck them on the marble of the chimneypiece. "Ah! we are in Paris!" he muttered. Then he was silent, crossed his arms, bowed his head on his breast, and said not another word during the whole evening. After once giving utterance to her will, Ginevra affected inconceivable coolness.
The wise traveller travels only in imagination. I have not read it and do not even know what it is about, but the title stimulates my fancy. In such a journey I could circumnavigate the globe. An eikon by the chimneypiece can take me to Russia with its great forests of birch and its white, domed churches.
I followed her into a room of moderate size, and evidently of much earlier date than the rest of the house. "It is the only room left of an older mansion," said the steward in answer to my remark. "I have heard it was spared on account of the chimneypiece. But there is a Latin inscription which will tell you all about it. I don't know Latin myself." The chimneypiece reached to the ceiling.
That given to the Queen was like an alcove, decorated by six large marble caryatides, joined by a handsome balustrade high enough to lean upon. The four-post bed was of azure blue velvet, with flowered work and rich gold and silver tasselling. Over the chimneypiece was the huge Bleink-Elmeink coat-of-arms, supported by two tall Templars.
The Chippendale chairs had gone, and had been replaced by four stout kitchen ones. The bits of rare china were fewer but the portrait of the famous Timothy La Sarthe, by Holbein, still frowned from his place of honor above the chimneypiece. All the La Sarthes had been christened Timothy since that time. The affair of the governess seemed to be troubling Miss Roberta.
I could see the blue parlour that Sunday evening; the sober couple seated primly opposite to each other; the china monsters on the high chimneypiece; the blue-and-white Dutch tiles, with queer squat figures of Flemish citizens on foot and on horseback; the candles burning dimly on the spindle-legged table two poor pale flames reflected ghastly in the dark polished panels of the wainscot; the big open Bible on an adjacent table; the old silver tankard, and buckhorn-handled knives and forks set out for supper; the solemn eight-day clock, ticking drearily in the corner; and amid all that sombre old-fashioned comfort, gray-haired Matthew sighing and lamenting for his vanished youth.
'Introduce me, Nickleby, said this second gentleman, who was lounging with his back to the fire, and both elbows on the chimneypiece. 'Sir Mulberry Hawk, said Ralph. 'Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby, said Lord Frederick Verisopht. 'Don't leave me out, Nickleby, cried a sharp-faced gentleman, who was sitting on a low chair with a high back, reading the paper.
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