"pigpi10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yonge Charlotte M)

by Charlotte M. Yonge




CHAPTER I.



Early in the September of the year 1651 the afternoon sun was shining
pleasantly into the dining-hall of Forest Lea House. The sunshine
came through a large bay-window, glazed in diamonds, and with long
branches of a vine trailing across it, but in parts the glass had
been broken and had never been mended. The walls were wainscoted
with dark oak, as well as the floor, which shone bright with rubbing,
and stag's antlers projected from them, on which hung a sword in its
sheath, one or two odd gauntlets, an old-fashioned helmet, a gun,
some bows and arrows, and two of the broad shady hats then in use,
one with a drooping black feather, the other plainer and a good deal
the worse for wear, both of a small size, as if belonging to a young
boy.

An oaken screen crossed the hall, close to the front door, and there
was a large open fireplace, a settle on each side under the great
yawning chimney, where however at present no fire was burning.
Before it was a long dining-table covered towards the upper end with
a delicately white cloth, on which stood, however, a few trenchers,
plain drinking-horns, and a large old-fashioned black-jack, that is
to say, a pitcher formed of leather. An armchair was at the head of
the table, and heavy oaken benches along the side.

A little boy of six years old sat astride on the end of one of the
benches, round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and,
with a switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down,
calling out, "Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion
behind me to Worcester, to see King Charles and brother Edmund."

"I'll come, I am coming!" cried Eleanor, a little girl about a year
older, her hair put tightly away under a plain round cap, and she was
soon perched sideways behind her brother.

"Oh, fie, Mistress Eleanor; why, you would not ride to the wars?"
This was said by a woman of about four or five-and-twenty, tall, thin
and spare, with a high colour, sharp black eyes, and a waist which
the long stiff stays, laced in front, had pinched in till it was not
much bigger than a wasp's, while her quilted green petticoat,
standing out full below it, showed a very trim pair of ankles encased
in scarlet stockings, and a pair of bony red arms came forth from the
full short sleeves of a sort of white jacket, gathered in at the