E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and
the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
by
1913
"Aye, it's a bit dampish," said Dixon, as he brought a couple more logsto replenish a fire that seemed to have no heart for burning.
The absurd moderation of the statement irritated the person to whom itwas addressed.
"What I'm thinkin'"—said Mrs. Dixon, impatiently, as she moved to thewindow—"is that they'll mappen not get here at all! The watter'll beover t' road by Grier's mill. And yo' know varra well, it may be runnin'too fasst to get t' horses through—an' they'd be three pussons inside,an' luggage at top."
"Aye, they may have to goa back to Pengarth—that's varra possible."
"An' all t' dinner spoilin', an' t' fires wastin'—for nowt." The speakerstood peering discontentedly into the gloom without: "But you'll nottrouble yoursen, Tammas, I daursay."
"Well, I'm not Godamighty to mak' t' rain gie over," was the man'scheerful reply, as he took the bellows to the damp wood which lay feeblycrackling and fizzing on the wide hearth. His exertions produced aspasmodic flame, which sent flickering tongues of light through the widespaces and shadows of the hall. Otherwise the deepening gloom of theOctober evening was lightened only by the rays of one feebly burning lampstanding apparently in a corridor or gallery just visible beyond a richlypillared archway which led from the hall to the interior of the house.Through this archway could be seen the dim ascending lines of a greatdouble staircase; while here and there a white carved doorway or corniceglimmered from the darkness.
A stately Georgian house, built in a rich classical style, and datingfrom 1740: so a trained eye would have interpreted the architectural anddecorative features faintly disclosed by lamp and fire. But the house andits contents—the house and its condition—were strangely at war.Everywhere the seemly lines and lovely ornament due to its originalbuilders were spoilt or obliterated by the sordid confusion to which somemodern owner had brought it. It was not a house apparently, so far as itspresent use went, but a warehouse. There was properly speaking nofurniture in it; only a multitude of packing-cases, boxes of all shapesand sizes, piled upon or leaning against each other. The hall was chokedwith them, so that only a gangway a couple of yards wide was left,connecting the entrance door with the gallery and staircase. And any onestepping into the gallery, which with its high arched roof ran the wholelength of the old house, would have seen it also disfigured in the sameway. The huge deal cases stood on bare boards; the splendid staircase wascarpetless. Nothing indeed could have been more repellant than thegeneral aspect, the squalid disarray of Threlfall Tower, as seen from theinside, on this dreary evening.
The fact impressed itself on Mrs. Dixon as she turned back from thewindow toward her husband.
She looked round her sulkily.
"Well, I've done my best, Tammas, and I daursay yo' have too. But it'snot a place to bring a leddy to—an' that's the truth."
"Foaks mun please theirsels," said Dixon with the same studied mildnessas before. Then, having at last made the logs burn, as he hoped, withsome bright