"Well it is time that we should be at our work, like good boys," observed Mr. Long, consulting his watch; "but still, for one morning, it does not matter, if you would like to stay, Peter."
"I would rather go home, sir," cried I, with involuntary eagerness. I was sorry the next moment, even before I saw the pained expression of my young companion.
"He has had enough of Fairburn Hall already," said he, bitterly. Then his face softened sadly, as though he would have said: "Am I not, therefore, to be pitied, who pass every day and night under this accursed roof?"
"Come," exclaimed Mr. Long, gaily, "I do not believe, Master Meredith, in this new-born devotion to your books. Let us go over the house first. I will accompany you as cicerone, for I once knew every hole and corner of it—a great deal better, I will venture to affirm, than the heir himself here." With these words he led the way into the passage.
"Every chamber on this floor is the facsimile of its neighbour," said Marmaduke: "since you have seen mine, you have seen all—an immense bed, a piece of carpet islanded amid a black sea of oak, a cupboard or two large enough to live in, and shepherdesses, with swains in ruffles, occupying the walls." There was, indeed, no appreciable difference in any of the rooms, except with regard to their aspect.
"When I first came to Fairburn, I slept here," continued Marmaduke, as we entered an apartment looking to the north, "and had that long illness, which you doubtless remember, sir. Heavens, what dreams I have had in this room! I have seen people standing by my bedside at night as clearly as I see you now. They called me delirious, but I believe I was stark mad."
"I remember it well," said Mr. Long, "although I did not recollect that you occupied this room. How was it that you came to change your quarters?"
"Oh, the doctor recommended the removal very strongly. Sir Massingberd said it was all nonsense about the look-out from my window, and that the east was as bad as the north for a boy in a fever; but he was obliged to give way. And I certainly benefited by the change. The Park is a much more cheerful sight than that forest of firs, and one is glad to see the sun, even when one cannot get out of doors. At all events, I had no such evil dreams."
"Yet this is what always used to be held the state-chamber," replied my tutor. "Charles I. occupied that bed while he was yet king; and before your ancestor, Sir Hugh, turned Puritan—a part he was very unfitted to play—it is said he used to swear through his nose. Peter the Great, too, is said to have passed a night here. Your dreams, therefore, should have been historical and noteworthy. I forget which of these smiling Phyllises is so complaisant as to make way when you would leave the room without using the door."
Two full-length female portraits were painted in panel, one on either side of the huge chimney-piece; a circlet of roses carved in oak surrounded each by way of frame. Mr. Long advanced towards the one on the right, and touched the bottom rose; it did not move. He went to the other, and did likewise; the rose revolved in his fingers, and presently, with a creak and a groan, the whole picture slid sideways over the wall, disclosing a narrow flight of wooden stairs.