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The old fireplaces and the roofs of spruce bark, a covering much used in the country, were still sound, and several cellars indicated where the other buildings had stood.
There was a score of rooms in the great, one-story, rambling edifice of rudely squared timbers set in field-stone and cement, rooms now closed and locked; there were flower-gardens still cultivated daily by José, the half-breed; a pretty court with a fountain and many roses, out upon which a dozen doorways looked; wide verandas with glimpses beyond of fireplaces and long expanses of polished floor.
I beheld in front of me village after village reduced to ashes. I rode down to the nearest heap of ruins. The place had been quite a large village, with probably seventy or eighty houses. Destruction, thorough and complete, had fallen upon it. Not a single house was left, and not a single wall of a house. Every pot with the winter stores was broken. The very earthen fireplaces were wrecked.
Facing the windows is a masterpiece of Jakob de Wit, "Moses Choosing the Seventy Elders." The figures are life-size, the painting extending the entire length of the room said to be the largest in Europe. There are marble fireplaces at either end, over one "Solomon's Prayer," by G. Flinck, and over the other "Jethro Counselling Moses to Appoint Judges from the People," by Bronkhorst.
In those times, too, there were large fireplaces in almost every room, for fuel was still plentiful in the Campagna and in the near mountains; and where the houses were practically open to the air all day, fires were an absolute necessity. Even in ancient times it is recorded that the Roman Senate, amidst the derisive jests of the plebeians, once had to adjourn on account of the extreme cold.
The firebacks and the andirons, and later the fire-dogs, of the open fireplaces are collectable curios of considerable interest, and the hobby may be indulged in at a moderate cost. The collection of mantelpieces may be left to the wealthy and to those who have baronial halls in which to refix them.
But Teeny-bits Holbrook could not help contrasting this luxurious home where every reasonable comfort was in evidence, where there were fireplaces and soft rugs and rich paintings, with his own poor little home in Hamilton where Ma Holbrook did the work and with her own hands kept everything shining and clean. For six days he lived a life that he had never lived before.
There were besides about a hundred structures, fireplaces, store-houses, and other rough enclosures, four or five feet high, used to keep their skin canoes from being gnawed by the dogs. Getting out of Repulse Bay, Captain Parry commenced a career of discovery along an unknown coast. An inlet was discovered, on which the name of Gore was bestowed.
The stern square tower of the keep, the odd circular chapel with its fine Norman entrance, the great banqueting hall, the elaborate stone fireplaces and the various apartments celebrated in the story of the castle interested us most. From the great tower I saw what I still consider the finest prospect in England, and I had many beautiful views from similar points of vantage.
Elizabethan, of course, with immense fireplaces, brass and dark woods, etchings and engravings, with the sea and rocks immediately under the window and the ocean stretching out for miles, lighthouses and more Elizabethan houses half hid on the bank, and ships and small boats pushing by within a hundred rods of the windows. I stayed to dinner there and we had a very jolly time.
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