the
humble truckle-bed where Grace Acton forgets by night the troubles of
the day; and the remainder of the little apartment, sordid enough, and
overhung with the rough thatch, black with cobweb, serves for the father
and mother with their recent nursery. Each room has its shattery
casement, to let in through linchened panes, the doubtful light of
summer, and the much more indubitable wind, and rain, and frost of
wintry nights. A few articles of crockery and some burnished tins
decorate the shelves of the lower apartment; which used to be much
tidier before the children came, and trimmer still when Grace was sole
manager: in a doorless cupboard are apparent sundry coarse edibles, as
the half of a huge unshapely home-made loaf, some white country cheese,
a mass of lumpy pudding, and so forth; beside it, on the window-sill, is
better bread, a well-thumbed Bible, some tracts, and a few odd volumes
picked up cheap at fairs; an old musket (occasionally Ben's companion,
sometimes Tom's) is hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions;
divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of
George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of
Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted
over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions,
conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria--two plaster
heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, looking with arched
eye-brows of astonishment on their uninviting palace, and royally
contrasting with the sombre hue of poverty on all things else. The
pictures had belonged to Mary, no small portion of her virgin wealth;
and as for the statuary, those two busts had cost loyal Roger far more
in comparison than any corporation has given to P.R.A., for majesty and
consortship in full. There is, moreover, in the room, by way of
household furniture, a ricketty, triangular, and tri-legged table, a
bench, two old chairs with rush-bottoms, and a yard or two of matting
that the sexton gave when the chancel was new laid. I don't know that
there is any thing else to mention, unless it be a gaunt lurcher
belonging to Ben Burke, and with all a dog's resemblance to his master,
who lies stretched before the hearth where the peaty embers never quite
die out, but smoulder away to a heap of white ashes; over these is
hanging a black boiler, the cook of the family; and beside them, on a
substratum of dry heather