to be of the slightest service in keeping out wind or wet or undesired
callers. She had therefore caused to be constructed an even older one
made from the oak-planks of a dismantled barn, and had it studded with
large iron nails of antique pattern made by the village blacksmith. He
had arranged some of them to look as if they spelled A.D. 1603. Over
the door hung an inn-sign, and into the space where once the sign had
swung was now inserted a lantern, in which was ensconced, well hidden
from view by its patinated glass sides, an electric light. This was one
of the necessary concessions to modern convenience, for no lamp
nurtured on oil would pierce those genuinely opaque panes, and
illuminate the path to the gate. Better to have an electric light than
cause your guests to plunge into Perdita's border. By the side of this
fortress-door hung a heavy iron bell-pull, ending in a mermaid. When
first Mrs Lucas had that installed, it was a bell-pull in the sense
that an extremely athletic man could, if he used both hands and planted
his feet firmly, cause it to move, so that a huge bronze bell swung in
the servants' passage and eventually gave tongue (if the athlete
continued pulling) with vibrations so sonorous that the white-wash from
the ceiling fell down in flakes. She had therefore made another
concession to the frailty of the present generation and the
inconveniences of having whitewash falling into salads and puddings on
their way to the dining room, and now at the back of the mermaid's tail
was a potent little bone button, coloured black and practically
invisible, and thus the bell-pull had been converted into an electric
bell-push. In this way visitors could make their advent known without
violent exertion, the mermaid lost no visible whit of her Elizabethan
virginity, and the spirit of Shakespeare wandering in his garden would
not notice any anachronism. He could not in fact, for there was none to
notice.