w from end to end of the opposite
wall, hung a dismal collection of black, begrimed old pictures, rotting
from their frames, and representing battle-scenes by sea and land. Below
the pictures, midway down the length of the wall, yawned a huge cavern
of a fireplace, surmounted by a towering mantel-piece of black marble.
The one object of furniture (if furniture it might be called) visible
far or near in the vast emptiness of the place, was a gaunt ancient
tripod of curiously chased metal, standing lonely in the middle of the
hall, and supporting a wide circular pan, filled deep with ashes from
an extinct charcoal fire. The high ceiling, once finely carved and gilt,
was foul with dirt and cobwebs; the naked walls at either end of the
room were stained with damp; and the cold of the marble floor struck
through the narrow strip of matting laid down, parallel with the
windows, as a foot-path for passengers across the wilderness of the
room. No better name for it could have been devised than the name which
old Mazey had found. "Freeze-your-Bones" accurately described, in three
words, the Banqueting-Hall at St. Crux.

"Do you never light a fire in this dismal place?" asked Magdalen.

"It all depends on which side of Freeze-your-Bones his honor the
admiral lives," said old Mazey. "His honor likes to shift his quarters,
sometimes to one side of the house, sometimes to the other. If he lives
Noathe of Freeze-your-Bones--which is where you've just come
from--we don't waste our coals here. If he lives South of
Freeze-your-Bones--which is where we are going to next--we light the
fire in the grate and the charcoal in the pan. Every night, when we do
that, the damp gets the better of us: every morning, we turn to again,
and get the better of the damp."

With this remarkable explanation, old Mazey led the way to the lower
end of the Hall, opened more doors, and showed Magdalen through another
suite of rooms, four in number, all of moderate size, and all furnished
in much the same manner as the rooms in the northern wing. She looked
out of the windows, and saw the neglected gardens of St. Crux, overgrown
with brambles and weeds. Here and there, at no great distance in the
grounds, the smoothly curving line of one of the tidal streams peculiar
to the locality wound its way, gleaming in the sunlight, through gaps
in the brambles and trees. The more distant view ranged over the flat
eastward country beyond, speckled with its scattered li