Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

The garret they were in served as a lumber-room for disused agricultural implements, and both the Duke and Mr. Prigley hurt their shins against those awkward obstacles. At last they came to a blank wall, and then to what seemed to be a sort of cupboard, so far as they could guess by touching.

Behind the cupboard was a small space, into which little Jacob insinuated himself, and afterwards cheerfully sang out, "I'm all right; here's the place!"

The gentlemen pushed the cupboard back a foot or two, and found the doorway behind it by which their guide had passed. They were in a long, low attic, very dimly lighted by a little hole in the wall at its remote extremity. It was full of obstacles, which the Duke's touch recognized at once as carved oak.

"We ought to have had lanterns," he said; "how tantalizing it is not to be able to see!"

"I would rather have a few slates taken off," John Stanburne answered; "that will make us a fine sky-light. I have a dread of fire."

Little Jacob was sent to fetch two or three men, who in half an hour had removed slates enough to throw full daylight on the scene—such daylight as had not penetrated there for many a long year. The old furniture of Wenderholme, gray, almost white, with age, filled the place from end to end in one continuous heap.

"But this is all white," said little Jacob, "and old oak ought to be brown, oughtn't it?"

"A little linseed-oil will restore the color," the Duke replied. Then he exclaimed, "By Jove! Colonel, we have found a treasure—we have indeed! Let us get every thing out into the yard, and then we can examine the things in detail."

The whole of the afternoon was spent in getting the old oak out. The gentlemen worked with the laborers, the Duke himself as energetically as any one. His great anxiety was to prevent injury to the carvings, which were very picturesque and elaborate. When the things were all out of doors, and the garret finally cleared, it was astonishing what a display they made. There were six cabinets, of which four had their entablatures supported by massive griffins or lions, and their panels inlaid with ebony and satin-wood, or carved with bas-reliefs, which, though certainly far from accurate in point of design, produced a very rich effect; whilst even the plainest of the cabinets were interesting for some curious specimen of turner's work or tracery. Then there were portions of three or four state beds, with massive deeply panelled testers and huge columns, constructed with that disdain for mechanical necessity, and that emphatic preference of the picturesque, which marked the taste of the Elizabethan age. Thus, a single bed-post would in one place be scarcely thicker than a man's wrist, and in another thicker than his body; the weight of the whole being enormously out of proportion to its strength. There were a number of chairs of various patterns, but which agreed in uniting weight with fragility, and stateliness with discomfort. There were also innumerable fragments, difficult at first sight to classify, but amongst which might be recognized the legs of tables (constructed on the same principle as the bed-posts), and pieces that had been detached from chairs, and cabinets, and beds. In addition to all these things, there were quantities of old wainscot, some of it carved, or inlaid with various woods.

The men had come to the wainscot at last, for it was reared against the walls of the garret behind the barricade of furniture. As they were removing it, there was a crashing of broken glass. A piece of this glass was brought to the light, and it was found to be stained with the arms of the Stanburnes (or, a bend cottised sa.), simple old bearings like those of most ancient untitled houses. On this other fragments were carefully collected, and they all bore the arms of Stanburne impaled with those of families with which the Colonel's ancestors had intermarried. Mr. Prigley, who was rather strong in heraldry, and knew the genealogy of his wife's family and all its alliances much better than did John Stanburne himself, recognized the martlets of Tempest, the red lion of Mallory, the green lion of Sherburne, the black lion of Stapleton, the chevron and cinquefoils of Falkingham, the golden lozenges of Plumpton, charged with red scallop-shells, in fess on a field of azure. "This has been a great heraldic window, commemorating the alliances of the family!" cried Mr. Prigley, in ecstasy. "It must be restored, Colonel," said the Duke, "and brought down to the present time—down to you and Lady Helena."