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Wilson, madam?" answered I. "She was perhaps the happiest of the party; for once a year, and not oftener, Mr. and Mrs. Melville Morton dined in the great wainscotted chamber in solemn state, the hangings being all displayed, the carpet laid down, and the huge brass candlestick set on the table, stuck round with leaves of laurel.
It had the appearance of a dwelling-house, two hundred years old or so, such as one sometimes sees in ancient country towns; the ceilings of the small rooms were low, and had heavy beams running across them; the walls were wainscotted breast high; the staircase was shallow, broad, and dark, taking up much space in the centre of the house.
There are curtains like rainbows, and carpets, as if the curtains had dripped all over the floor. There are heavy cabinets of carved walnut, such as belong in the heavy wainscotted rooms of old palaces, set against my last French pattern of wall paper. There are lofty chairs like the thrones of archbishops in Gothic cathedrals, standing by the side of the elaborately gilded frames of mirrors.
The houses on each side of the lane were so close that the neighbours might have shaken hands with each other from the different sides, and occasionally the space between was traversed by wooden galleries, and thus entirely closed up. The stair, the scale-stair, was not well cleaned; and on entering the house Mannering was struck with the narrowness and meanness of the wainscotted passage.
My own future did not interest me at this stage. I sat up and looked round me. I was in a small, bare cabin, roughly wainscotted and exceedingly filthy. There were the grease-marks from the backs of heads all along a bulkhead above a wooden bench; the rough table, on which my arms rested, was covered with layers of tallow spots. Bright light shone through a porthole.
However, by reasonable perseverance, the archbishop, the bishop's lady, and all the noble company present found themselves safely at the top. Our host remarked, I think, that it was the second time he had ever been there. The room is thirteen feet by twelve, and about eight feet high, wainscotted with oak, which is scrawled over with names and inscriptions.
Old prints of ships with alphabetical references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the walls; the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells, seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like a cabin.
The rooms are wainscotted: very large croissees open upon shrubberies, with rose acacias and rhododendrons in profuse flower: the garden is surrounded by lime-trees thick and high, and cut, like the beech-walk at Collon, at the end into arches through the foliage, and the stems left so as to form rows of pillars, through which you see, on one side, fine views of lawn and distant country, while on the other the lime-grove is continued in arcades, eight or nine trees deep.
All her conversation during the long days would be around her earthly wrongs. The other ghosts, in all probability, would have heard about that husband of hers, what he said, and what he did, till they were sick of the subject. A newcomer would be seized upon with avidity. A lady of repute writes to a magazine that she once occupied for a season a wainscotted room in an old manor house.
From the ceiling to the dado the wainscotted space at the base, for in Hungary this old arrangement is still maintained in its fullest form the walls are covered with pictures of scripture scenes and objects in natural history; while the dado itself, terminating above in a shelf, exhibits busts, stuffed animals, and pots of flowers the whole place, indeed, being a kind of museum, specially adapted for the enjoyment as well as instruction of the young.
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