Peter's Mother by Mrs. Henry de la Pasture
page 27 of 329 (08%)
page 27 of 329 (08%)
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on his shoulder. "No man in your profession, or in mine, ought to be
able to say that. Pull yourself together, hope for the best, and play your part." CHAPTER III John Crewys looked round the hall at Barracombe House with curious, interested eyes. It was divided from the outer vestibule on the western side of the building by a massive partition of dark oak, and it retained the solid beams and panelled walls of Elizabethan days; but the oak had been barbarously painted, grained and varnished. Only the staircase was so heavily and richly carved, that it had defied the ingenuity of the comb engraver. It occupied the further end of the hall, opposite the entrance door, and was lighted dimly by a small heavily leaded, stained-glass window. The floor was likewise black, polished with age and the labour of generations. A deeply sunken nail-studded door led into a low-ceiled library, containing a finely carved frieze and cornice, and an oak mantelpiece, which John Crewys earnestly desired to examine more closely; the shield-of-arms above it bore the figures of 1603, but the hall itself was of an earlier date. Parallel to it was the suite of lofty, modern, green-shuttered reception-rooms, which occupied the south front of the house, and into which an opening had been cut through the massive wall next the |
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