Archie’s room in the tower was opened in state next day. Old Kate herself had lit fires in it every night for a week before, though she never would go up the long dark stair without Peter. Peter was only a mite of a boy, but wherever he went, Fuss, the Skye terrier, accompanied him, and it was universally admitted that no ghost in its right senses would dare to face Fuss.
Elsie was there of course, and Rupert too, though he had to be almost carried up by stalwart Branson. But what a glorious little room it was when you were in it! A more complete boy’s own room could scarcely be imagined. It was a beau ideal; at least Rupert and Archie and Elsie thought so, and even Mr Walton and Branson said the same.
Let me see now, I may as well try to describe it, but much must be left to imagination. It was not a very big room, only about twelve feet square; for although the tower appeared very large from outside, the abnormal thickness of its walls detracted from available space inside it. There was one long window on each side, and a chair and small table could be placed on the sill of either. But this was curtained off at night, when light came from a huge lamp that depended from the ceiling, and the rays from which fought for preference with those from the roaring fire on the stone hearth. The room was square. A door, also curtained, gave entrance from the stairway at one corner, and at each of two other corners were two other doors leading into turret chambers, and these tiny, wee rooms were very delightful, because you were out beyond the great tower when you sat in them, and their slits of windows granted you a grand view of the charming scenery everywhere about.
The furniture was rustic in the extreme—studiously so. There was a tall rocking-chair, a great dais or sofa, and a recline for Rupert—“poor Rupert” as he was always called—the big chair was the guest’s seat.
The ornaments on the walls had been principally supplied by Branson. Stuffed heads of foxes, badgers, and wild cats, with any number of birds’ and beasts’ skins, artistically mounted. There were also heads of horned deer, bows and arrows—these last were Archie’s own—and shields and spears that Uncle Ramsay had brought home from savage wars in Africa and Australia. The dais was covered with bear skins, and there was quite a quantity of skins on the floor instead of a carpet. So the whole place looked primeval and romantic.
The bookshelf was well supplied with readable tales, and a harp stood in a corner, and on this, young though she was, Elsie could already play.
The guest to-night was old Kate. She sat in the tall chair in a corner opposite the door, Branson occupied a seat near her, Rupert was on his recline, and Archie and Elsie on a skin, with little Peter nursing wounded Fuss in a corner.
That was the party. But Archie had made tea, and handed it round; and sitting there with her cup in her lap, old Kate really looked a strange, weird figure. Her face was lean and haggard, her eyes almost wild, and some half-grey hair peeped from under an uncanny-looking cap of black crape, with long depending strings of the same material.
Old Kate was housekeeper and general female factotum. She was really a distant relation of the Squire, and so had it very much her own way at Burley Old Farm.
She came originally from “just ayant the Border,” and had a wealth of old-world stories to tell, and could sing queer old bits of ballads too, when in the humour.