The Church, Which Might Perhaps Have
Served As Rallying-Point For These Loose Houses, And Pulled The
Township Into Something
Like intelligible unity, stands some
distance off among great trees; but the inn (to take the public
buildings in order
Of importance) is in what I understand to be the
principal street: a pleasant old house, with bay-windows, and
three peaked gables, and many swallows' nests plastered about the
eaves.
The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside: indeed, I
never saw any room much more to be admired than the low wainscoted
parlour in which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a
short oblong in shape, save that the fireplace was built across one
of the angles so as to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle
was similarly truncated by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was
white, and there was a Turkey carpet on the floor, so old that it
might have been imported by Walter Shandy before he retired, worn
almost through in some places, but in others making a good show of
blues and oranges, none the less harmonious for being somewhat
faded. The corner cupboard was agreeable in design; and there were
just the right things upon the shelves - decanters and tumblers, and
blue plates, and one red rose in a glass of water. The furniture
was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down to
the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may
fancy how pleasant it looked, all flushed and flickered over by the
light of a brisk companionable fire, and seen, in a strange, tilted
sort of perspective, in the three compartments of the old mirror
above the chimney.
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