Loitering in Pleasant Paths. Marion Harland
The pot, she proceeded to relate, was “six ’undred years h’old,” and bringing down the poker upon and around the edge, evolving slow gratings and rumblings that crucified our least sensitive nerves, “h’is this h’our without ’ole h’or crack h’as H’I can h’answer for h’and testify!”
The entire exhibition was essentially dramatic and effectively ridiculous. She accepted our gratuity with the same high tragedy air and posed herself above the chaldron for an entering party of visitors.
We sauntered up to the castle along a curving drive between a steep bank overrun with lush ivy and a wall covered with creepers, and overhung by fine old trees. Birds sang in the branches and hopped across the road, the green shade bathed our eyes refreshingly after the glare of the flint-strewn highway outside of the gates. It was a forest dingle, rather than the short avenue to the grandest ancient castle in Three Kingdoms. A broad expanse of turf stretching before the front of the mansion is lost as far as the eye can reach in avenues and plantations of trees. Among these are cedars of Lebanon, brought by crusading Earls from the Holy Land, still vigorously supplying by new growth the waste of centuries. Masses of brilliant flowers relieved the verdure of the level sward, fountains leaped and tinkled in sunny glades, and cut the shadow of leafy vistas with the flash of silver blades. In the principal conservatory stands the celebrated Warwick Vase, brought hither from Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli. Ladders were reared against the barbican wall of great height and thickness, close by Guy’s Tower (erected in 1394). Workmen mounted upon these were scraping mosses and dirt from the interstices of the stones and filling them with new cement. No pains nor expense is spared to preserve the magnificent fortress from the ravages of time and climate. From the foundation of the Castle until now, the family of Warwick, in some of its ramifications—or usurpations—has been in occupation of the demesne and is still represented in the direct line of succession by the present owner. The noble race has battled more successfully with revolution and decay in behalf of house and ancestral home than have most members of the British Peerage whose lineage is of equal antiquity and note.
Opposite the door by which we entered the Great Hall, was a figure of a man on horseback, rider and steed as large as life. The complete suit of armor of the one and the caparisons of the other, were presented by Queen Elizabeth to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, her handsome master-of-horse. From this moment until we quitted the house, we were scarcely, for a moment, out of sight of relics of the parvenu favorite.
It is difficult to appreciate that real people, made of flesh, blood, and sensibilities akin to those of the mass of humankind, live out their daily lives, act out their true characters, indulge in “tiffs” and “makings up,” and have “a good time generally,” in these great houses to which the public are so freely admitted. Neither lives nor homes seem to be their individual and distinctive property. They must be tempted, at times, to doubts of the proprietorship of their own thoughts and enjoy the right of private opinion by stealth.
One thing helped me to picture a social company of friends grouped comfortably, even cozily, in this mighty chamber, the pointed rafters of which met so far above us that the armorial bearings carved between them upon the ceiling were indistinct to near-sighted eyes; where the walls were covered with suits of armor, paintings by renowned masters, and treasures of virtu in furniture and ornament thronged even such spaciousness as that in which the bewildered visitor feels for a moment lost. A great fireplace, with carved oaken mantel, mellow-brown with years, and genuine fire-dogs of corresponding size, yawned in the wall near Leicester’s effigy. Beside this was a stout rack, almost as large as a four-post bedstead, full of substantial logs, each at least five feet long. There must have been a cord of seasoned wood heaped irregularly within bars and cross-pieces. Some was laid ready for lighting in the chimney, kindlings under it. A match was all that was needed to furnish a roaring fire. That would be a feature in the old feudal hall. An antique settle, covered with crimson, stood invitingly near the hearth. One sitting upon it had a view of the lawn sloping down to the river, and the umbrageous depths of the woods beyond; of the jutting end and one remaining pier of the old bridge on the hither bank, the trailing ivy pendants drooping to touch the Avon that mirrored castle-towers, trees, the broken masonry of one bridge and the solid, gray length of the other. In fancying who might have sat here on cool autumn days, looking dreamily from the red recesses of the fireplace to the tranquil picture framed by the window; who walked at twilight upon the polished floor over the sheen of the leaping blaze upon the dark wood; who talked, face to face, heart with heart, about the hearth on stormy winter nights—I had let the others move onward in the lead of the maid-servant who was appointed to show us around. One gets so tired of the sing-song iteration of names and dates that she is well-pleased to let acres of painted canvas, the dry inventory of beds and stools, tables and candlesticks, the list of lords, artists and grandees gabbled over in hashed English, seasoned with pert affectations, slip unheeded by her ears. We accounted it great gain when we were suffered to enjoy in our own way a single picture or a relic that unlocked for us a treasure-closet of memory and fancy.
Drifting dreamily then in the wake of the crowd, I halted between an original portrait of Charles I. and one of his namesake and successor, trying, for the twentieth time, to reconcile the fact of the strong family likeness with the pensive beauty of the father and the coarse ugliness of the son, when strident tones projected well through the nose apprised me that the Traveling American had arrived and was on duty. The maid had waited in the Great Hall to collect a party of ten before beginning the tour. Workmen were hammering somewhere upon or about the vaulted roof, and the woman’s explanations were sometimes drowned by the reverberation. We were not chagrined by the loss. We had guide-books and catalogues, and each had some specific object of interest in view or quest. The Traveling American, benevolent to a nuisance, tall, black-eyed and bearded, with an oily ripple of syllables betraying the training of camp-meeting or political campaign, took up the burden of the girl’s parrot-talk and rolled it over to us, not omitting to inter-lard it with observations deprecatory, appreciative, and critical.
“Original portrait of Henry VIII., by a cotemporary artist—name not known. Holbein—most likely! He was always painting the old tyrant. Considered a very excellent likeness. Although nobody living is authority upon that point. Over the door, two portraits. Small heads, you see, hardly larger than cabinet pictures—of Mary and Anne Boleyn. Which is which—did you say, my dear? Oh! the one to the left is Anne, Henry’s second wife. Supplanted poor old Kate of Arragon, you remember. What a run of Kates the ugly Blue-beard had! Anne is a pretty, modest-looking girl. The wonder is how she could have married that fat beer-guzzler over yonder, king or no king. Let me see! Didn’t he want to marry Mary, too? ‘Seems to me there is some such story. And she said ‘No, thank you!’ Hers is a nice face, but she isn’t such a beauty as her sister.”
Ad infinitum—and from the outset, ad nauseam, to all except the four ladies of his party. They tittered and nudged one another at each witticism, and looked at us for answering tokens of sympathy. We pressed the maid onward since we were not allowed to precede her; tarried in the rear of the procession as nearly out of ear-shot as might be. But the armory is a succession of narrow rooms, and a pause at the head of the train in the last of the series brought about a “block” of the two parties. Upon a table was a lump of faded velvet and tarnished gold lace, frayed and almost shapeless.
T. A. (beamingly). “The saddle upon which Queen Elizabeth rode, on the occasion of her memorable visit to Kenilworth. She had just given Kenilworth to Leicester, you remember, as a love-token. He was a Warwick (!); so the saddle has naturally remained in the family. An interesting and perfectly authenticated relic. Elizabeth invented side-saddles, as you are all aware. This was manufactured to order. It is something to see the saddle on which Queen Elizabeth rode. And on such an occasion! It makes an individual, as it were—thrill! Clara! where are you, my dear.” A pretty little girl came forward, blushingly. “Put your hand upon it, my child! Now—you can tell them all at home you have had your hand upon the place where Queen Elizabeth sat on!”
“Is there no pound in Warwick for vagrant donkeys?” muttered Lex, a youth in our section of the company.
He had been abroad but three weeks, and the species, if not the genus, was a novelty to him. Nor had we, when as strange to the sight and habits of the creature