You will have, therefore, to look
to the country people for your supplies; but of all this my own man will
give you information. So now, good night, sweet young lady. It is on the
stroke of nine. Before eleven you shall have those who will help and
protect you. Meanwhile you had best go downstairs with me, and lock and
bolt the great door leading into the garden, which I found ajar."
"There is the door facing the river, too, by which I entered."
"Ay, that should be barred also. Keep a good heart, madam. Before eleven
you shall have a sturdy watchman on the premises."
Angela took a lighted candle and followed the physician through the great
empty rooms, and down the echoing staircase; under the ceiling where Jove,
with upraised goblet, drank to his queen, while all the galaxy of the Greek
pantheon circled his imperial throne. Upon how many a festal procession
had those Olympians looked down since that famous house-warming, when
the colours were fresh from the painter's brush, and when the third
Lord Fareham's friend and gossip, King James, deigned to witness the
representation of Jonson's "Time Vindicated," enacted by ladies and
gentlemen of quality, in the great saloon, a performance which--with the
banquet and confectionery brought from Paris, and "the sweet waters which
came down the room like a shower from heaven," as one wrote who was
present at that splendid entertainment, and the _feux d'artifice_ on the
river--cost his lordship a year's income, but stamped him at once a fine
gentleman.
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