For myself, when I think how much that is great and vigorous and noble comes to us through our Norse ancestry, I regret that by the abandonment of the four-poster we are casting aside one of its most cherished traditions, and yet there remains matter of consolation in the thought that, for the last sleep of all, we revert to the fashion of bed a la Scandinave.
V.
Striking a Light.
“Please, sir, the rats be a rampagin’ in the lumber-room as makes the blood curl!”
For fifty years I had never been into that lumber-room. It is situated up a steep flight of steps in the back kitchen, and had once been inhabited by a button-boy. Here is an extract from my grandmother’s account-book for the year 1803:—
| Footman | £14 |
| Page | 4 |
| Cook | 12 |
| Housemaid | 7 |
Verily prices have risen since 1803.
However, to return to the four-pounder. He inhabited this room some ninety years ago: then it was abandoned, finally locked up, and the key lost. About fifty years ago, as a boy, I did explore the place, through the window, after nests. My grandfather died. Then my father succeeded, and the room remained unopened during his reign. My father died, and I succeeded to the old house. I had been in it some years, when the other day the kitchen-maid complained that the rats in this lumber-room over the back kitchen made her blood “curl,” by which she meant, presumably, “curdle;” till then I had never thought of an exploration.
To abate the nuisance, however, I broke open the door and entered the long-abandoned room. Since the four-pounder had occupied it, for some years that room must have been employed as a place for lumber, because it proved to contain a quantity of old, disused articles in iron and tin, and amongst these were two stands for rushlights, a tinder-box, and a glass phosphorus bottle.