The kitchen was oak-panelled, wide and essentially comfortable, with red brick floor and huge fireplace fitted with corner seats.
Candles, smoked hams, and rows of onions hung from the rafters. The china, genuine old willow, was piled on the oak dresser; pewter pots gleamed cheerfully in the firelight, though they were muddled up with pipes and fishing tackle in a way that would have made a good housewife's heart sink; and the rubicund face of an "old toby" beamed from among them,—a sort of presiding genius.
Two tallow candles stood on the square wooden table in the middle of the room. The remains of a meal were shoved together at one corner of the table, and books littered the other side. The candles cast deep eerie shadows, but never flickered; though the wind was tossing against the lozenge-shaped windows in angry gusts. The thick walls of the farm were quite draught-proof, let the storm shriek as it would.
Mr. Thorpe was walking with long uneven steps up and down the room. His hands—thin narrow hands—were clasped behind his back, his head poked forward a little.
He was a loose-limbed, gaunt man; big-boned, though he stooped so that it was difficult to guess his real height; his chest seemed to have sunk in, and his shoulders to have become permanently rounded.
His clothes hung on him as if they had been put on with a pitchfork, and his silky black beard straggled untidily over his old-fashioned flowered waistcoat.
His eyes were deep-set, blue, like his younger son's; but here the resemblance ended, for Mr. Thorpe was olive-complexioned, and his features were fine and clear cut. His was a more refined face than the preacher's. Evidently, Barnabas had inherited from his mother's side his fair skin and curly hair; also, probably, his incapacity for learning and his splendid health.
Tom Thorpe sat at the table with a pile of books in front of him; his shadow danced in the firelight, as if cruelly caricaturing the reality.
He was deformed, hunchbacked, and slightly crippled as well, one leg being oddly twisted inwards.
He had an odd face too, with a very big forehead, and rough jet black hair. He might have been taken for any age, having the sort of countenance that looks as if it had never been young, and yet is slow to grow old. In reality he was nearly forty.