" And after
stabling Mercury it was but a step across to the inn.
The "Dogs Inn" took its name from two stone greyhounds beside its porch--
supporters of the arms of that old family from which the Westcotes had
purchased Bayfield; and the Orange Room from a tradition that William
of Orange had spent a night there on his march from Torbay. There may
have been truth in the tradition; the room at any rate preserved in it
window-hangings of orange-yellow, and a deep fringe of the same hue
festooning the musicians' gallery. While serving Axcester for ball,
rout, and general assembly-room, it had been admittedly dismal--its
slate-coloured walls scarred and patched with new plaster, and relieved
only by a gigantic painting of the Royal Arms on panel in a blackened
frame; its ceiling garnished with four pendants in plaster, like bride-
cake ornaments inverted.
To-day, as she stepped across the threshold, Dorothea hesitated between
stopping her ears and rubbing her eyes. The place was a Babel.
Frenchmen in white paper caps and stained linen blouses were laughing,
plying their brushes, mixing paints, shifting ladders, and jabbering
all the while at the pitch of their voices. For a moment the din
bewildered her; the ferment had no more meaning, no more method, than
a schoolboy's game. But her eyes, passing over the chaos of paint-pots,
brushes, and step-ladders, told her the place had been transformed.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28