It is such a place as you read of in
romances of the Middle Ages; not a pinnacled or turreted French
chateau of that period, but a beautiful and substantial stone manor
house of a ruddy colour, whose warm hue seemed to add a softness to
the severity of its architecture. It is built round an outer and an
inner courtyard and could house a thousand, rather than the hundred
with which its owner had accredited it. There are many stone-mullioned
windows, and one at the end of the library might well have graced a
cathedral. This superb residence occupies the centre of a heavily
timbered park, and from the lodge at the gates we drove at least a
mile and a half under the grandest avenue of old oaks I have ever
seen. It seemed incredible that the owner of all this should actually
lack the ready money to pay his fare to town!
Old Higgins met us at the station with a somewhat rickety cart, to
which was attached the ancient cob that the late earl used to shoe. We
entered a noble hall, which probably looked the larger because of the
entire absence of any kind of furniture, unless two complete suits of
venerable armour which stood on either hand might be considered as
furnishing. I laughed aloud when the door was shut, and the sound
echoed like the merriment of ghosts from the dim timbered roof above
me.
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