Three gentlemen were in the carriage—an open one. On the back seat was our old acquaintance, Mr. Tatham of Chatteries, while in the places of honor sate a handsome and portly gentleman enveloped in mustaches, whiskers, fur collars, and braiding, and by him a pale, languid man, who descended feebly from the carriage, when the little lawyer, and the gentleman in fur, had nimbly jumped out of it.
They walked up the great moss-grown steps to the hall-door, and a foreign attendant, with ear-rings, and a gold-laced cap, pulled strenuously at the great bell-handle at the cracked and sculptured gate. The bell was heard clanging loudly through the vast, gloomy mansion. Steps resounded presently upon the marble pavement of the hall within; and the doors opened, and, finally, Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, Polly, her aid-de-camp, and Smart, the keeper, appeared, bowing humbly.
Smart, the keeper, pulled the wisp of hay-colored hair which adorned his sunburned forehead, kicked out his left heel, as if there were a dog biting at his calves, and brought down his head to a bow. Old Mrs. Blenkinsop dropped a courtesy. Little Polly, her aid-de-camp, made a courtesy, and several rapid bows likewise; and Mrs. Blenkinsop, with a great deal of emotion, quavered out, "Welcome to Clavering, Sir Francis. It du my poor eyes good to see one of the family once more."
The speech and the greetings were all addressed to the grand gentleman in fur and braiding, who wore his hat so magnificently on one side, and twirled his mustaches so royally. But he burst out laughing, and said, "You've saddled the wrong horse, old lady—I'm not Sir Francis Clavering what's come to revisit the halls of my ancestors. Friends and vassals! behold your rightful lord!"
And he pointed his hand toward the pale, languid gentleman, who said, "Don't be an ass, Ned."
"Yes, Mrs. Blenkinsop, I'm Sir Francis Clavering; I recollect you quite well. Forgot me, I suppose?—How-dy-do?" and he took the old lady's trembling hand; and nodded in her astonished face, in a not unkind manner.
Mrs. Blenkinsop declared upon her conscience that she would have known Sir Francis any where, that he was the very image of Sir Francis his father, and of Sir John who had gone before.
"O yes—thanky—of course—very much obliged—and that sort of thing," Sir Francis said, looking vacantly about the hall. "Dismal old place, ain't it Ned? Never saw it but once, when my governor quarreled with my gwandfather, in the year twenty-thwee."
"Dismal?—beautiful!—the Castle of Otranto!—the Mysteries of Udolpho, by Jove!" said the individual addressed as Ned. "What a fire-place! You might roast an elephant in it. Splendid carved gallery! Inigo Jones, by Jove! I'd lay five to two it's Inigo Jones."
"The upper part by Inigo Jones; the lower was altered by the eminent Dutch architect, Vanderputty, in George the First his time, by Sir Richard, fourth baronet," said the housekeeper.