However, our progress was not so tedious as I had feared. On entering one room, indeed, my misgivings returned: for, in this room somebody of importance had, in a fit of intoxication, played a practical joke of a very awful nature, the effect of which was to render a negro imbecile for life; but, after this narrative, we got on pretty briskly.
A very few words will describe the house. It was full of long passages and rooms, into which I was constantly stumbling, owing to the majority of them being sunk a foot or so beneath the level of the corridors. Some of them were empty: those that were furnished were furnished handsomely. One side of the roof was flat, and my uncle led me through a trap-door, whence we emerged into so broiling a sun, and on to a floor so burning, that I darted hastily down the staircase, protesting that if I wasn’t killed by a sunstroke, I should be roasted alive. He told me that, in the cool of the evening, it was a great treat to sit upon this roof, “for from it,” said he, “you may obtain as fine a prospect as any to be found in England.”
I was beginning to grow somewhat curious to meet my cousin, and to examine with calmness and courage a young lady who thought nothing of enforcing her commands with a revolver; but my uncle had not yet done with his house. I was to see the library before I was to be allowed to take mine ease. I hardly cared enough about books in those days to feel an interest in his collection. He was a complete Oldbuck in his devotion to old volumes, broadsides, tracts, and scarce editions. Many of his books, he assured me, as he stood with his back to the door, complacently surveying the large collection that was ranged, row upon row, round the walls, were worth their weight in gold.
“Here,” said he, pulling out a folio, “is a book for which I gave eight guineas, and for which I should consider myself insulted by an offer of twenty. Look at those engravings. You might search a thousand libraries, and not find this gem.”
The name of the book I forget: but I wouldn’t own that the engraving he opened the book at, and pointed to with immense triumph, struck me as very rude, and not to be compared with illustrations to be found in modern books, costing only a few shillings. Bibliomania must be humoured, like any other form of madness. I was bitten with it myself not many years ago, and thought more of old bundles of illegible print stitched in parchment, well perforated with moths and worms, than of emeralds and diamonds. He pulled down several other volumes to show me, explaining their value and chattering about their contents in a style which convinced me that he was one of the very few book-buyers who are book-readers. I grew at last so thoroughly tired of having to stand and feign attention and interest, that I proposed that we should return to the drawing-room, where I might hope to meet my cousin.
CHAPTER IV.
“Although her father is ... excessively rich, I should, were I a youth of quality, hesitate between a girl so neglected and a negro.”
Dr. Johnson.
There was nobody in the drawing-room.