I had a sight, anyway, as we went into the stun courtyard, ornamented with stun carvin’, into the interior.
Josiah didn’t take to it at all.
But, then, as I told him, what could you expect of a house where the folks had been away for several hundred years—any place would look kinder dreary.
But he sez, “Dum it all! when it wuz new, who’d like to have sech rough stun floors? And look at that fireplace in the kitchen, big enough to roast a hull ox. How could a man cut wood enough to keep that fire a-goin’?”
Sez I, “The man of the house didn’t have to do it at all, his vassals did it, Josiah.”
“Wall, he had to tend to it, and I’d ruther do the work any time than to keep a vassal a-goin’, that is, any vassal that I ever hired by the month, or day.”
But in the great banquettin’ hall, with its oak rafters and long table, where they feasted, at one end a little higher—for the quality, I spoze—he ketched sight of the minstrels’ gallery at one end. And sez he, his face lightin’ up, “The man of the house could git up there and sing while the rest wuz eatin’, if he wanted to, and nothin’ said about it.”
“Yes,” sez I pintedly, “if he could sing; but,” sez I, wantin’ to git his mind offen this unpleasant theme, sez I—
“I’d love dearly to see this table set out as it ust to be, and the noble and beautiful a-settin’ round it, with boars’ heads on the table, and great sides of beef, and gilded peacocks.”
“And jugs of ale and wine,” sez Josiah.