Wilfrid Cumbermede | Page 4

the
new impulses of the age, was born and reared in closest neighbourhood
with strange relics of a vanished time. Humanity so far retains its chief
characteristics that the new generations can always flourish in the old
shell.
The dairy was at some distance, so deep in a hollow that a careless
glance would not have discovered it. I well remember my astonishment
when my aunt first took me there; for I had not even observed the
depression of surface: all had been a level green to my eyes. Beyond
this hollow were fields divided by hedges, and lanes, and the various
goings to and fro of a not unpeopled although quiet neighbourhood.
Until I left home for school, however, I do not remember to have seen a
carriage of any kind approach our solitary dwelling. My uncle would
have regarded it as little short of an insult for any one to drive wheels
over the smooth lawny surface in which our house dwelt like a solitary
island in the sea.
Before the threshold lay a brown patch, worn bare of grass, and beaten
hard by the descending feet of many generations. The stone threshold
itself was worn almost to a level with it. A visitor's first step was into
what would, in some parts, be called the house-place, a room which
served all the purposes of a kitchen, and yet partook of the character of
an old hall. It rose to a fair height, with smoke-stained beams above;

and was floored with a kind of cement, hard enough, and yet so worn
that it required a good deal of local knowledge to avoid certain jars of
the spine from sudden changes of level. All the furniture was dark and
shining, especially the round table, which, with its bewildering,
spider-like accumulation of legs, waited under the mullioned, lozenged
window until meal-times, when, like an animal roused from its lair, it
stretched out those legs, and assumed expanded and symmetrical shape
in front of the fire in Winter, and nearer the door in Summer. It recalls
the vision of my aunt, with a hand at each end of it, searching
empirically for the level--feeling for it, that is, with the creature's own
legs--before lifting the hanging-leaves, and drawing out the hitherto
supernumerary legs to support them; after which would come a fresh
adjustment of level, another hustling to and fro, that the new feet
likewise might settle on elevations of equal height; and then came the
snowy cloth or the tea-tray, deposited cautiously upon its shining
surface.
The walls of this room were always whitewashed in the Spring,
occasioning ever a sharpened contrast with the dark-brown ceiling.
Whether that was even swept I do not know; I do not remember ever
seeing it done. At all events, its colour remained unimpaired by paint or
whitewash. On the walls hung various articles, some of them high
above my head, and attractive for that reason if for no other. I never
saw one of them moved from its place--not even the fishing-rod, which
required the whole length betwixt the two windows: three rusty hooks
hung from it, and waved about when a wind entered ruder than
common. Over the fishing-rod hung a piece of tapestry, about a yard in
width, and longer than that. It would have required a very capable
constructiveness indeed to supply the design from what remained, so
fragmentary were the forms, and so dim and faded were the once bright
colours. It was there as an ornament; for that which is a mere
complement of higher modes of life, becomes, when useless, the
ornament of lower conditions: what we call great virtues are little
regarded by the saints. It was long before I began to think how the
tapestry could have come there, or to what it owed the honour given it
in the house.

On the opposite wall hung another object, which may well have been
the cause of my carelessness about the former--attracting to itself all
my interest. It was a sword, in a leather sheath. From the point, half
way to the hilt, the sheath was split all along the edge of the weapon.
The sides of the wound gaped, and the blade was visible to my prying
eyes. It was with rust almost as dark a brown as the scabbard that
infolded it. But the under parts of the hilt, where dust could not settle,
gleamed with a faint golden shine. That sword was to my childish eyes
the type of all mystery, a clouded glory, which for many long years I
never dreamed of attempting to unveil. Not the sword Excalibur, had it
been 'stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,' could have
radiated more marvel into the hearts of young knights than that sword
radiated