‘Go into the oak parlour,’ said Mrs Crawshay cheerily to the young folks, when she understood their mission; ‘and I’ll be with you in a minute.’
The oak parlour was the stateroom of the house. It was long and high; the oak of the panels and beams which supported the pointed roof were of that dark hue which only time can impart. The three narrow windows had been lengthened by Dick’s father, and when the moon shone through them they were like three white ghosts looking in upon the dark chamber. But the moon did not often get a chance of doing this, for there was only a brief period of the year during which there was not a huge fire blazing in the great old-fashioned ingle. There were four portraits of former Crawshays and three of famous horses; with these exceptions the walls were bare, for none of the family had ever been endowed with much love of art.
There were some legends still current about the mysteries hidden behind the sombre panels. One of the panels was specially honoured because it was reputed to have a recess behind it in which the king had found shelter for a time during his flight from the Roundheads. But owing to the indifference or carelessness of successive generations, nobody was now quite sure to which of the panels this honour properly belonged. There had been occasional attempts made to discover the royal hiding-place, but they had hitherto failed.
The furniture was plain and substantial, displaying the styles of several periods of manufacture. In spite of the stiff straight lines of most of the things in the room, the red curtains, the red table-cover, the odd variety of the chairs gave the place a homely and, when the fire was ablaze, a cosy expression. This stateroom was correctly called ‘parlour,’ and it had been the scene of many a revel.
As Philip and Madge were on their way to the oak parlour, a servant presented a card to the latter.
‘He asked for you, miss,’ said the girl, and passed on to the kitchen.
Madge looked at the card, and instantly held it out to Philip.
‘Hullo!—my father,’ ejaculated he, adding with a laugh: ‘Now you can see that this mountain of yours is not even a molehill.’
‘How can you tell that?’
‘Because my father is the reverse of Uncle Dick. He never forgets—I doubt if he ever forgives—an unpleasant word. And yet here he is. Come along at once—but we had better say nothing to him about the affair unless he speaks of it himself.’