Chilvern returns that there's a better one at Boulogne.

Milburd caps this by quoting the one at the Crystal Palace.

Cazell observes quickly that _the_ place for curious marine specimens is Bakstorf in Central Russia.

"_You've_ never been to Central Russia," says Milburd, superciliously.

Professing to have travelled considerably himself, he doesn't like the idea of anyone having done the same.

"I wish," exclaims Cazell, using a formula of his own, "I wish I had as many sovereigns as I've been in Central Russia."

This appears conclusive, and, if it isn't, here we are at the House.

Blackmeer Hall. Elizabethan, apparently.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD WOMAN RECEIVES US AT THE DOOR.]

CHAPTER III.

WITHIN--THE HOUSEKEEPER--WINDOWS--INFORMATION--THE ORIEL--VIEW-- FLOOR--MILBURD'S INQUIRY--TYPICAL DEVELOPMENT--MATERIAL--AN EXAMPLE --CRONE--POOR--MEDITATIONS--THE FRESCO--TAPESTRY--ARMOUR--MICE--RATS --THE GHOST.

An old woman curtseys, and ushers our party into the Hall itself, which is lofty and s.p.a.cious, but in a mildewy condition.

The floor is partly stone partly tiles, as if the original designer had been, in his day, uncertain whether to make a roof of it, or not.

A fine old chimney, with a hearth for logs, and dogs, is at one end, and reminds me of retainers, deer hounds, oxen roasted whole, and Christmas revels in the olden time.

The windows are diamond-paned. To open in compartments.

The old woman tells us that this was rebuilt in fifteen hundred and fifty-two, and then she shows us into the drawing-room.

This is a fine apartment with an Oriel window, giving on to a lawn of rank and tangled gra.s.s. Beyond this chaos of green, is a well timbered covert, dense as a small black forest.

The distance between the trees becoming greater to the left of the plantation, we obtain a glimpse of the lake which we pa.s.sed on our road.

There is another grand fire-place in this room. The wainscot wants patching up, and so does the parqueted floor.

The old woman tells us that "they say as Queen Elizabeth was once here."

Milburd asks seriously, "Do you recollect her, ma'am?"

The crone wags her head and replies "that it was afore her time."

Mentioning the word Crone to Boodels, I ask him what relation it bears to 'Cronie.' "'Cronie,' almost obsolete now, means 'a familiar friend,'"

I explain to him. He says thank you, and supposes that the two words have nothing in common except sound.

The notion being in fact part of my scheme for _Typical Developments_ (Vol. XIII. Part I. "_On sounds of words and their relation to one another_"), I offer him my idea on the subject.

He asks, "What is it?"

_Happy Thought._--"Crone" is the feminine of "Cronie." "Cronie" is an old friend, "Crone" is an old friend's old wife. Which sounds like a sentence in one of my German Exercises. "The Old wife of the Old friend met the Lion in the garden."

Boodels says "Pooh!" If he doesn't understand a thing at once he dismisses it with "pooh." As I ascend the wide oak staircase, with room enough for eight people abreast on every step, I reflect on the foolishness of a man saying "pooh," hastily. How many great schemes might anyone nip in the bud by one "pooh." What marvellous inventions, apparently ridiculous in their commencing idea, would be at once knocked on the head by a single "pooh." The rising Artist has an infant design for some immense historical Fresco. He comes--I see him, as it were, coming to Boodels to confide in him. "I mean," says he, "to show Peter the Great in the right-hand corner, and Peter the Hermit in another, with Peter Martyr somewhere else, ... in fact, I see an immense historical subject of all the Celebrated Peters .... Then why not offer it to St. Peter's at Rome, and why not ...?" "Pooh!" says Boodels, and the artist perhaps goes off and drowns himself, or goes into business and so is lost to the World. If I'd listened to Boodels' "Pooh," I should never have got on so far as I have with my work on Typical Developments. I hope to be remembered by this.

Milburd is calling me. Everyone in ecstasies. What wonderful old chambers. Oak panels, diamond panes. Remains of tapestry, containing probably a fine collection of moths. Old rusty armour on the walls.

Strange out-of-the-way staircases leading to postern-doors and offices.

Chilvern observes that it all wants doing up, and commences making plans and notes in a book, which he takes from his pocket, in company with a small ivory two-foot rule.

"Plenty of mice," says Cazell, looking at the old woman for corroboration.

"Yes, in winter-time," she says.

"And rats?" inquires Milburd.

"I've met 'em on the stairs," replies the old lady, quite cheerfully.

"Ghosts, too?" suggests Boodels. [He has become somewhat melancholy of late and says that he is studying the phenomena of "Unconscious Cerebration," which Milburd explains is only a name for thinking of nothing without knowing it. Boodels, in consequence, thinks Milburd a mere buffoon.]

"Well, my husband," she answers in a matter-of-fact way, "my husband, he see the Ghost... I think it were last Christmas twelvemonth."

"_The_ Ghost!" exclaims Boodels, much interested.

"Yes, the White Lady," says the old woman as pleasantly as possible.

"There's the marks on the floor of the stain where she was murdered.

There! that gentleman's standing on it."

Good gracious! so I am. A dull sort of mulberry-coloured stain. "It won't wash out," she goes on. "I've tried it. And it won't plane out, as they've tried _that_. And so," she finishes with a sniff, "there it is."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IV.

ALONE--THE SECRET DOOR--UNSOCIABILITY--THE PICTURE--GRIM THOUGHTS-- ONE CHEERFUL IDEA--MELON--HIDING--CRUEL JOKES--SPIRAL--ANGLES-- a.s.sa.s.sINS--WHITE LADY--A COMFORT--NERVES--THE DOOR--A GROWL--SNIFFS --A FOLLOWER--REASONING--SAD THOUGHTS--OUT AT LAST.

Every one is silent for a minute, and then we smile at the absurd idea of there being a ghost about. I linger for a few seconds after the others. They go out on to the landing. When I leave the room I pa.s.s out there too. They are all gone. I catch sight of a small door, in the panelling, on my right at the end of this corridor, closing quickly.

They are gone evidently to visit some other quarter of the house. They might have stopped for me. Very unsociable. One seems to hear every footfall in this house. And even when you're not speaking, your thoughts appear to find an echo, and to be repeated aloud. In this short narrow gallery, there is an old picture of a man in a Spanish dress, holding a melon in his hand. His eyes follow me. Curious effect. I stop for a moment. They are fixed on me. Remember some story about this somewhere, when it turned out that there was a man concealed, who came out to murder people at night, living happily behind the picture in the day-time. Cheer myself up by thinking that if Milburd had seen this picture he'd have named it "The Meloncolic Man."

Odd. I don't hear their voices. They can't be playing me any trick, and hiding. If there is a thing I detest, if there is one thing above another absolutely and positively wicked and reprehensible, it is hiding behind a door or a curtain ... or in fact behind anything ... and then popping out on you suddenly. Heard of a boy to whom this was done, and he remained an idiot for the rest of his life.

_Happy Thought._--To look cautiously _at_ the corners. To open the small door quietly, and say, "Ah!" ... No. No one there. All gone down. A dark narrow winding staircase (lighted only by loopholes), so that one is perpetually going round angles and might come upon anyone, or anyone upon you, without any sort of preparation. I can quite understand a.s.sa.s.sins coming down on their victim, or up on their victim, or up and down, simultaneously, on their victim, in one of these old places.

a.s.sa.s.sins in the olden time. I wonder if it's true about the White Lady?