A few old domestics stuck by the family in its fallen
fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some
quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with
dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house commenced.
Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were
so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an
apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial
Rainham, needs the pen of the author of _Lammermoor_ to describe.
It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style,
with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so
bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and
ghostly presentments of their originals. I do not think a fire
could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, and
some of the portraits literally sagged in their frames with
accumulations of rubbish which had dropped behind the canvases.
Many of the pictures were of no value except for their
associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family group, the
principal figure in which was a young lady displaying too little
modesty and too much bosom. Another may have been a Vandyk, while
one or two were early works representing gallants of Elizabeth's
time in ruffs and feathered caps.
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