Chantry House eBook

Of space within there was plenty, though so much had been sacrificed to the hall and staircase; and this was apparently the cause of the modern additions, as the original sitting-rooms, wainscotted and double-doored, were rather small for family requirements.  One of these, once the dining-room, became my father’s study, where he read and wrote, saw his tenants, and by and by acted as Justice of the Peace.  The opposite one, towards the garden, was termed the book-room.  Here Martyn was to do his lessons, and Emily and I carry on our studies, and do what she called keeping up her accomplishments.  My couch and appurtenances abode there, and it was to be my retreat from company,—­or on occasion could be made a supplementary drawing-room, as its fittings showed it had been the parlour.  It communicated with another chamber, which became my own—­sparing the difficulties that stairs always presented; and beyond lay, niched under the grand staircase, a tiny light closet, a passage-room, where my mother put a bed for a man-servant, not liking to leave me entirely alone on the ground floor.  It led to a passage to the garden door, also to my mother’s den, dedicated to housewifely cares and stores, and ended at the back stairs, descending to the servants’ region.  This was very old, handsomely vaulted with stone, and, owing to the fall of the ground, had ample space for light on the north side,—­where, beyond the drive, the descent was so rapid as to afford Martyn infinite delight in rolling down, to the horror of all beholders and the detriment of his white duck trowsers.

I don’t know much about the upper story, so I spare you that.  Emily had a hankering for one of the pretty old mullioned-windowed rooms—­ the mullion chambers, as she named them; but Griff pounced on them at once, the inner for his repose, the outer for his guns and his studies—­not smoking, for young men were never permitted to smoke within doors, nor indeed in any home society.  The choice of the son and heir was undisputed, and he proceeded to settle his possessions in his new domains, where they made an imposing appearance.

CHAPTER IX—­RATS

’As louder and louder, drawing near,
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear.’

Southey.

‘What a ridiculous old fellow that Chapman is,’ said Griff, coming in from a conference with the gaunt old man who acted as keeper to our not very extensive preserves.  ’I told him to get some gins for the rats in my rooms, and he shook his absurd head like any mandarin, and said, “There baint no trap as will rid you of them kind of varmint, sir."’

‘Of course,’ my father said, ’rats are part of the entail of an old house.  You may reckon on them.’

‘Those rooms of yours are the very place for them,’ added my mother.  ‘I only hope they will not infest the rest of the house.’