WHAT a lovely morning! how glassy the sea, how busy the fishing-boats, and how fast asleep the wind in its old quarter! Towards evening, however, it freshened, and I took a toss in a boat with Mr. Trefusis, whose territories extend half round the bay. His green hanging downs spotted with sheep, and intersected by rocky gullies, shaded by tall straight oaks and ashes, form a romantic prospect, very much in the style of Mount Edgcumbe.
We drank tea at the capital of these dominions, an antiquated mansion, which is placed in a hollow on the summit of a lofty hill, and contains many ruinous halls and never-ending passages: they cannot, however, be said to lead to nothing, like those celebrated by Gray in his Long Story, for Mrs. Trefusis terminated the perspective. She is a native of Lausanne, and was quite happy to see her countryman Verdeil.
We should have very much enjoyed her conversation, but the moment tea was over, the squire could not resist leading us round his improvements in kennel, stable, and oxstall: though it was pitch-dark, and we were obliged to be escorted by grooms and groomlings with candles and lanterns; a very necessary precaution, as the winds blew not more violently without the house than within.
In the course of our peregrination through halls, pantries, and antechambers, we passed a staircase with heavy walnut-railing, lined from top to bottom with effigies of ancestors that looked quite formidable by the horny glow of our lanterns; which illumination, dull as it was, occasioned much alarm amongst a collection of animals, both furred and feathered, the delight of Mr. Trefusis’s existence.
Every corner of his house contains some strange and stinking inhabitant; one can hardly move without stumbling over a basket of puppies, or rolling along a mealy tub, with ferrets in the bottom of it; rap went my head against a wire cage, and behold a squirrel twirled out of its sleep in sad confusion: a little further on, I was very near being the destruction of some new-born dormice—their feeble squeak haunts my ears at this moment!
Beyond this nursery, a door opened and admitted us into a large saloon, in the days of Mr. Trefusis’s father very splendidly decorated, but at present exhibiting nothing, save damp plastered walls, mouldering floors, and cracked windows. A well-known perfume issuing from this apartment, proclaimed the neighbourhood of those fragrant animals, which you perfectly recollect were the joy of my infancy, and presently three or four couple of spanking yellow rabbits made their appearance. A racoon poked his head out of a coop, whilst an owl lifted up the gloom of his countenance, and gave us his malediction.
My nose having lost all relish for rabbitish odours, took refuge in my handkerchief; there did I keep it snug till it pleased our conductors to light us through two or three closets, all of a flutter with Virginia nightingales, goldfinches, and canary-birds, into the stable. Several game-cocks fell a crowing with most triumphant shrillness upon our approach; and a monkey—the image of poor Brandoin—expanded his jaws in so woful a manner, that I grew melancholy, and paid the hunters not half the attention they merited.
At length we got into the open air again, made our bows and departed. The evening was become serene and pleasant, the moon beamed brilliantly on the sea; but the owls, who are never to be pleased, hooted most ruefully.
Good night: I expect to dream of closed-up doors,[12] and haunted passages; rats, puppies, racoons, game-cocks, rabbits, and dormice.