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Owners of French chateaus, driven to poverty, were sending to America treasures of all sorts of furniture, tapestries, carpets, old fountains, porcelains, even carved woodwork and ancient mantels, and Rodney, from the mixed motives of business and pride, decided to exhibit them. The old brick floor of the stable he replaced with handmade tiles.
The great parlour was panelled in wood, white and gold. The other chief rooms were wainscoted in oak; and as to their upper walls, some were bright with French paper, while some shone white with smooth plaster; their ceilings and borders were decorated with arabesque woodwork. There were tiled fireplaces, with carved mantels, white, like the rectangular window-frames and panelled doors.
He asked himself why Byng had not been content to buy one of the great mansions which could always be had in London for a price, where time had softened all the outlines, had given that subdued harmony in architecture which only belongs to age. Byng could not buy with any money those wonderful Adam's mantels, over-mantels and ceilings which had a glory quite their own.
"And look at the gorgeousness," announced Nat. "Ever see finer wood, or better mantels? Why, I'll bet this was a regular castle, all right. Not so bad now." The young men were racing about from room to room, but the girls were not so keen on investigating.
The house was painted inside and out; there were carpets upon the floors, draperies at the windows, vases and ornaments on the mantels, pictures on the walls. But though all the furnishings were of the simplest and cheapest, yet, to the rude and unaccustomed people about them, their home seemed a veritable palace.
Many of the columns of the Causeway have been carried off and sold as pillars for mantels, and tho a notice is put up threatening any one with the rigor of the law, depredations are occasionally made. Returning, we left the road at Dunluce and took a path which led along the summit of the cliffs.
This incident is here recorded for the betterment of the Young, to show them that things are not always what they seem. Samuel Johnson, I have said, was a Grind of the pure type. He was so nearsighted that he fell over chairs in drawing-rooms, and so awkward that his long arms occasionally brushed the bric-a-brac from mantels. No lady's train was safe if he was in the room.
A damp chill came from the chimneys with their mantels of painted stone, surmounted by mirrors in panels of the style of the seventeenth century. The apartment was square, like the house, and looked out upon the inner court, which could not now be seen because of the darkness. "Who has lived here?" asked Godefroid of the priest.
If lavish expenditure and a large brilliant attendance could insure their enjoyment, it was not wanting. Flowers in fanciful baskets on the tables and in great banks on the mantels and in the fireplaces deservedly attracted much attention and praise, though the sum expended on their transient beauty was appalling.
The position and style of lighting fixtures is decided by the type of house, the size and height of the rooms, the amount of wall space, the use for which the rooms are intended, their style of furnishing, the chief centers of interest, such as mantels, doors, furniture, and pictures of importance, and also the manner in which the walls are treated, whether paneled or papered.
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