Clumps of elms and oaks dot over the
huge green flat. Every one of them would have been down long since, but
that the Marquis is not allowed to cut the timber.
Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. At the
seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the insolvent butcher hanged
himself. I scarcely wondered at the dismal deed, so woful and sad were
the impressions connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I
walked--alone and thinking of death.
I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way--except when
intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the lake--an
enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by
four stone towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand facade is
a huge Ionic portico, approached by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase.
Rows of black windows, framed in stone, stretch on either side, right
and left--three storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see
a picture of the palace and staircase, in the 'Views of England and
Wales,' with four carved and gilt carriages waiting at the gravel walk,
and several parties of ladies and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting
the fatiguing lines of stairs.
But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT to ascend. The
first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years in the peerage), if she
got out of her gilt coach in a shower, would be wet to the skin before
she got half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary statues
of Peace, Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels.
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