"The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart--see, they bark at me!"
cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his voice the bark was
changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he was surrounded and
almost overpowered by the caresses of the faithful animals.
We had now come in full view of the old family mansion, partly thrown
in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold moonshine. It was
an irregular building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of the
architecture of different periods. One wing was, evidently very ancient,
with heavy stone-shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy,
from among the foliage of which the small diamond-shaped panes of glass
glittered with the moonbeams. The rest of the house was in the French
taste of Charles the Second's time, having been repaired and altered,
as my friend told me, by one of his ancestors, who returned with that
monarch at the Restoration. The grounds about the house were laid out
in the old formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies,
raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, a
leaden statue or two, and a jet of water. The old gentleman, I was
told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete finery in all its
original state. He admired this fashion in gardening; it had an air
of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting good old family
style. The boasted imitation of nature in modern gardening had sprung
up with modern republican notions, but did not suit a monarchical
government; it smacked of the levelling system.
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