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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 625
" Well, I suppose 'ee can go up," said the old woman, at the
sight of this talisman. " There's only two of them staying there,
and they're out a-drivin'."
Philip was bent on seeing the halls of his ancestors. Grey and
huge, with towers, and vanes, and porticos, they lay before us a
mile off, separated from us by a streak of glistening river. A great
chestnut avenue led up to the river, and in the dappled grass the
deer were browsing.
You know the house of course. There is a picture of it in
Watts, bearing date 1783. A gentleman in a cocked hat and
pigtail is rowing a lady in a boat on the shining river. Another
nobleman in a cocked hat is angling in the glistening river from
the bridge, over which a postchaise is passing. •
" Yes, the place is like enough," said Philip ; " but I miss the
postchaise going over the bridge, and the lady in the punt with
the tall parasol. Don't you remember the print in our housekeeper's
room in Old Parr Street ? My poor mother used to tell
me about the house, and I imagined it grander than the palace of
Aladdin. It is a very handsome house," Philip went on. " ' It
extends two hundred and sixty feet by seventy-five, and consists of
a rustic basement and principal story, with an attic in the centre,
the whole executed in stone. The grand front towards the park
is adorned with a noble portico of the Corinthian order, and may
with propriety be considered one of the finest elevations in the ________ '
I tell you I am quoting out of Watts's ' Seats of the Nobility and
Gentry,' published by John and Josiah Boydell, and lying in our
drawing-room. Ah, dear me ! I painted the boat and the lady
and gentleman in the drawing-room copy, and my father boxed my
ears, and my mother cried out, poor dear soul ! And this is the
river, is it? And over this the postchaise went with the clubtailed
horses, and here was the pig-tailed gentleman fishing. It
gives me a queer sensation," says Philip, standing on the bridge,
and stretching out his big arms. "Yes, there are the two people
in the punt by the rushes. I can see them, but you can't ; and
I hope, sir, you will have good sport." And here he took off his
hat to an imaginary gentleman supposed to be angling from the
balustrade for ghostly gudgeon. We reached the house presently.
We ring at the door in the basement under the portico. The
porter demurs, and says some of the family is down, but they
are out, to be sure. The same half-crown argument answers with
him which persuaded the keeper at the lodge. We go through the
show-rooms of the stately but somewhat faded and melancholy
palace. In the cedar dining-room there hangs the grim portrait'
of the late Earl ; and that fair-haired officer in red ? that must be
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