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She was seated in an elaborately-carved high-backed chair, near a table on which were the remains of a dessert for one person. The Green Saloon was a large gloomy room; at least it looked gloomy as I saw it for the first time, lighted up by four wax candles where twenty were needed.
It is ornamented with arcading in front, with gables, each partition divided by buttresses with pinnacles. Above it is a canopy with a richly-foliated arch, and a gable with crockets, terminating in an elaborately-carved finial, with a statue of the archbishop in the act of benediction on the top. On each side are buttresses, with elaborate pinnacles.
Passing and examining en route many elaborately-carved temples, whose domes rose amid the strangling masses of desert tree and shrub, we came to the base of the red tower, whose shaft, four-square and in perfect preservation, has, with its more venerable brother of Fame, watched for so many centuries over the fallen fortress of Chitor.
The Gothic tracery of the arches that face the quadrangle unites the strength of stone with the delicacy of pencil drawing. In the late Gothic and Renaissance part, the ceilings are richly and floridly groined, angelic and other figures forming the termination of the low-reaching bosses, the groins converging in fan-like order towards elaborately-carved canopies against the wall.
The old disused town-hall is quaint enough with its elaborately-carved façade, with a high double roof and dormers, and a lantern surmounting all. A bit of true 'Low-Countries' work; but one often forgets that we are in French Flanders. Entertaining hours could be spent here with profit, simply in wandering from spot to spot, eschewing the 'town valet' and professional picture guide.
Some fine old monuments, and warlike trophies of neighbouring wealthy families, adorned the walls, and within the nave was a magnificent pew, with a canopy and pillars of elaborately-carved oak, and lattice-work at the sides, allotted to the manor of Read, and recently erected by Roger Nowell; while in the north and south aisles were two small chapels, converted since the reformed faith had obtained, into pews the one called Saint Mary's Cage, belonging to the Assheton family; and the other appertaining to the Catterals of Little Mitton, and designated Saint Nicholas's Cage.
The centre of the terrace was marked by a perfect curtain of liana-like creepers and vines, which hung in festoons from on high and almost completely hid the elaborately-carved front. "There must be an entrance here," said the captain. "Out with your jack-knives, my lads, and cut a way through."
It was rather a gloomy mansion, pervaded throughout with evidences of its late owner's oriental career; old Indian cabinets; ponderous chairs of elaborately-carved ebony, clumsy in form and barbaric in design; curious old china and lacquered ware of every kind, from gigantic vases to the tiniest cups and saucers; ivory temples, and gods in silver and clay, crowded the drawing-rooms and the broad landings on the staircase.
Looking westward, and rapidly surveying the gardens and pleasant suburban villages lying on the north of the Strand, the young man's gaze settled for a moment on Charing Cross the elaborately-carved memorial to his Queen, Eleanor, erected by Edward I. and then ranging over the palace of Whitehall and its two gates, Westminster Abbey more beautiful without its towers than with them it became fixed upon Westminster Hall; for there, in one of its chambers, the ceiling of which was adorned with gilded stars, were held the councils of that terrible tribunal which had robbed him of his inheritance, and now threatened him with deprivation of liberty, and mutilation of person.
She was dressed in a faded, but once magnificent robe, and trowsers of silk, and wore upon her head a massive and elaborately-carved ornament of silver. She moved among the fierce and blood-thirsty savages, with an air of mingled scorn and anxiety, reproaching them with the shame of the transaction, and pleading earnestly that our lives and property be spared.
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