elling consisted of a
thorough lobby and a hall, with a parlour beyond it, on one side, and
the kitchens and offices on the other. The windows were narrow, scarcely
more than a few inches wide, and, in all probability, not originally
intended to contain glass.

The chimneys and fireplaces were wide and open; the apartments, except
the hall, low, narrow, and inconvenient, divided by partitions of oak,
clumsy, and ill-carved with many strange and uncouth devices. The hall
was, on the right of the entrance, lighted by one long low window; a
massy table stood beneath. The fireplace was on the opposite side,
occupying nearly the whole breadth of the chamber. A screen of wainscot
partitioned off the lobby, carved in panels of grotesque workmanship.
Beyond the hall was the parlour, furnished as usual with an oaken
bedstead, standing upon a ground-floor paved with stone. In this
dormitory, the timbers of which were of gigantic proportions, slept
Master Oliver and Mistress Joan Tempest,--the latter not a little given
to that species of uxorious domination which most wives, when they apply
themselves heartily to its acquisition, rarely fail to usurp.

"Here," says Dr Whitaker (this being the general style of building for
centuries, and scarcely, if at all, deviated from),--"here the first
offspring of our forefathers saw the light; and here too, without a wish
to change their habits, fathers and sons in succession resigned their
breath. It is not unusual to see one of these apartments now transformed
into a modern drawing-room, where a thoughtful mind can scarcely forbear
comparing the past and present,--the spindled frippery of modern
furniture, the frail but elegant apparatus of a tea-table, the general
decorum, the equal absence of everything to afflict or to transport,
with what has been heard, or seen, or felt, within the same walls,---
the logs of oak, the clumsy utensils, and, above all, the tumultuous
scenes of joy or sorrow, called forth, perhaps, by the birth of an
heir, or the death of an husband, in minds little accustomed to restrain
the ebullitions of passion.

"Their system of life was that of domestic economy in perfection.
Occupying large portions of his own domains; working his land by oxen;
fattening the aged, and rearing a constant supply of young ones; growing
his own oats, barley, and sometimes wheat; making his own malt, and
furnished often with kilns for the drying of corn at home, the master
had pleasi