innovations of modern degeneracy upon the sober
and dignified habits of our ancestors. I can introduce him, it is true,
into an old and high-roofed chamber, its walls covered in three sides
with black oak wainscoting, adorned with carvings of fruit and flowers
long anterior to those of Grinling Gibbons; the fourth side is clothed
with a curious remnant of dingy tapestry, once elucidatory of some
Scriptural history, but of _which_ not even Mrs. Botherby could
determine. Mr. Simpkinson, who had examined it carefully, inclined to
believe the principal figure to be either Bathsheba, or Daniel in the
lions' den; while Tom Ingoldsby decided in favor of the king of Bashan.
All, however, was conjecture, tradition being silent on the subject. A
lofty arched portal led into, and a little arched portal led out of,
this apartment; they were opposite each other, and each possessed the
security of massy bolts on its interior. The bedstead, too, was not one
of yesterday, but manifestly coeval with days ere Seddons was, and when
a good four-post "article" was deemed worthy of being a royal bequest.
The bed itself, with all the appurtenances of palliasse, mattresses,
etc., was of far later date, and looked most incongruously comfortable;
the casements, too, with their little diamond-shaped panes and iron
binding, had given way to the modern heterodoxy of the sash-window. Nor
was this all that conspired to ruin the costume, and render the room a
meet haunt for such "mixed spirits" only as could condescend to don at
the same time an Elizabethan doublet and Bond Street inexpressibles.

With their green morocco slippers on a modern fender, in front of a
disgracefully modern grate, sat two young gentlemen, clad in "shawl
pattern" dressing-gowns and black silk stocks, much at variance with
the high cane-backed chairs which supported them. A bunch of
abomination, called a cigar, reeked in the left-hand corner of the mouth
of one, and in the right-hand corner of the mouth of the other--an
arrangement happily adapted for the escape of the noxious fumes up the
chimney, without that unmerciful "funking" each other, which a less
scientific disposition of the weed would have induced. A small pembroke
table filled up the intervening space between them, sustaining, at each
extremity, an elbow and a glass of toddy--thus in "lonely pensive
contemplation" were the two worthies occupied, when the "iron tongue of
midnight had tolled twelve."

"Ghost-time'