Looking steadfastly towards him, she struck her dark broad fists upon her hips, and, in a loud and contemptuous laugh, abruptly startled the cynic from his studies. He eyed her with a grin of malice and vexation.
"Thou she-ape, I wonder what first ye'arn made for; the plague o' both man and beast,—the worst plague that e'er Pharaoh waur punished wi'. Screech on; I'll ha' my think out, spite o' thy caterwauling."
"Thou art a precious wonder, Master Crab. Squirt thy verjuice, when thou art roasting, some other way. I wonder what man-ape thy mother watch'd i' the breeding. She had been special fond o' children, I bethink me."
"And what knowest thou o' my dame's humours, thou curl-crop vixen?" said Gregory, unwarily drawn forth again from his taciturnity. "How should her inclinations be subject to thy knowledge?"
"She rear'd thee!" was the reply.
Two other hinds belonging to the household, who were watching the issue of the contest, here joined in a loud clamour at the victory; and Gregory, dogged with baiting, became silent, scowling defiance at his foe.
Waddington Hall was at that period a building of great antiquity. Crooks, or great heavy arched timbers, ascending from the ground to the roof, formed the principal framework of the edifice, not unlike the inverted hull of some stately ship. The whole dwelling consisted of a thorough lobby and a hall, with a parlour beyond it, on one side, and the kitchens and offices on the other. The windows were narrow, scarcely more than a few inches wide, and, in all probability, not originally intended to contain glass.
The chimneys and fireplaces were wide and open; the apartments, except the hall, low, narrow, and inconvenient, divided by partitions of oak, clumsy, and ill-carved with many strange and uncouth devices. The hall was, on the right of the entrance, lighted by one long low window; a massy table stood beneath. The fireplace was on the opposite side, occupying nearly the whole breadth of the chamber. A screen of wainscot partitioned off the lobby, carved in panels of grotesque workmanship. Beyond the hall was the parlour, furnished as usual with an oaken bedstead, standing upon a ground-floor paved with stone. In this dormitory, the timbers of which were of gigantic proportions, slept Master Oliver and Mistress Joan Tempest,—the latter not a little given to that species of uxorious domination which most wives, when they apply themselves heartily to its acquisition, rarely fail to usurp.
"Here," says Dr Whitaker (this being the general style of building for centuries, and scarcely, if at all, deviated from),—"here the first offspring of our forefathers saw the light; and here too, without a wish to change their habits, fathers and sons in succession resigned their breath. It is not unusual to see one of these apartments now transformed into a modern drawing-room, where a thoughtful mind can scarcely forbear comparing the past and present,—the spindled frippery of modern furniture, the frail but elegant apparatus of a tea-table, the general decorum, the equal absence of everything to afflict or to transport, with what has been heard, or seen, or felt, within the same walls,—- the logs of oak, the clumsy utensils, and, above all, the tumultuous scenes of joy or sorrow,
called forth, perhaps, by the birth of an heir, or the death of an husband, in minds little accustomed to restrain the ebullitions of passion.