Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/184

Rh houses that neither of us thought would do, without more imaginin' than would pay, till we came to a pretty big house near the river, which struck our fancy in a minute. It was a stone house, an' it had trees aroun' it, there was a garden with a wall, an' things seemed to suit first-rate, so we made up our minds right off that we'd try this place.

"'You wait here under this tree,' says he, 'an' I'll go an' ask 'em if they'll take us to board for a while.'

"So I waits, an' he goes up to the gate, an' pretty soon he comes out an' says, "All right, they'll take us, an' they'll send a man with a wheelbarrer to the station for our trunk." So in we goes. The man was a country-like lookin' man, an' his wife was a very pleasant woman. The house wasn't furnished very fine, but we didn't care for that, an' they gave us a big room that had rafters instid of a ceilin', an' a big fireplace, an' that, I said, was jus' exac'ly what we wanted. The room was almos' like a donjon itself, which he said he reckoned had once been a kitchin, but I told him that a earl hadn't nothin' to do with kitchins, an' that this was a tapestry chamber, an' I'd tell him all about the strange figgers on the embroidered hangin's, when the shadders begun to fall.

"It rained a little that afternoon, an' we stayed in our room, an' hung our clothes an' things about on nails an' hooks, an' made believe they was armour an' ancient trophies an' portraits of a long line of ancestors. I did most of the make-believin'; but he agreed to ev'rything. The man who kep' the house's wife brought us our supper about dark, because she said she thought we might like to have it together cosy, an' so we did, an' was glad enough of it; an' after