Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/388

 352 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

surrounding it. In short, it is a good type of a patrician country-seat in colonial times.

There are sixteen roora-i in the house, exclusive of closets and the attic, and they are all of good size. A balustrade, quaintly carved, and supported by intertwining pillars, borders the staircases from top to bottom. Many a time, no doubt, have gallant gentlemen in queues, small clothes, and heavily embroid- ered coats, passed up and down these stairs, supporting belles arrayed in stiff brocade, towering head-gear and high-heeled shoes. In the large square room at the left of the broad hall was the ancient parlor of the Rolfes and Thomp- sons. What scenes it must have witnessed ! Provincial grandees had mustered there in the cjUI days to break bread with the ancient proprietors. John Wheelock, grand old soul, trod this floor once upon a time. By that broad open fire-place, the lord and lady of the mansion-house sat many a night, and talked of their love by the flickering light. In its prime the room must have been a grand apartment. It can scarcely boast even of faded magnifi- cence now. The costly panehng is dark with age. Its beauty and its glory have departed.

Ascending to the second story we find the apartments much like those below. How solidly the old house was built ! Note thc^se pontlerous timbers that compose the framework. They seem able to endure the wear of a thousand years. There was nothing slighted in its erection. Its founder personally directed the construction of the whole. The granite underpinning was brought from the now famous Concord quarry, at Rattlesnake hill. Most of the timl)er was white oak, sawed at his own mill. The window frames are quaintly carved, and tradition says they were all done with a jack-knife, piece by piece. Slow and tedious work it must have been — something that a yankee of the present time would nervously shrink from doing.

In that large square chamber in the south-west corner, the Countess Rum- ford died. Her ghost is said to haunt it at times, though how that can well be we do not know, for her remains lie buried under tons of marble in the old cemetery on State street. During her last years the old countess was very eccentric, and lived very retired. A young English girl, whom she had adopted, was her only companion. The young lady had a lover who visited her by stealth : but the countess, discovering what was going on, confined her attendant in this same room. "Love laughs at locksmiths," it is said, and in this case the lovers managed to get together, and were married before the countess was aware of it. The old lady was terribly angry when she learned the fact. Slie would have nothing to say to her adopted child, and gave the bulk of her property away. The young lady who married against the will of the countess is now Mrs. John Burgum, of Concord.

We descend to the ground again, and wander about the well-kept grounds. Every thing is redolent of the olden time. Here is a summer-house built by Count Rumford. Along this path have gUded the light steps of Mrs. Thomp- son and Lady Rumford, many and many a time. Down this back way and out of that gate in the rear, stole Benjamin Thompson, in the night, when forced to leave his home at the threats of his bitter enemies. There by the fence, he may have stopped to look his last on the roof that had sheltered him during two happy, brilliant years. Home, wife, and little child, he was leaving, and he knew not what the future had in store for him. Go thy way, brave heart ! There are laurels for thee to win. When these village worthies, thy maligners, are forgotten, thy name will blaze in the scroll of glory. Go thy way. The boundaries of a provincial town are not to hedge in thy renown. The wide world is before thee, and Fortune is leading thee on.

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