There is an ancient mansion we often go to, just where the hills of Herefordshire rise confounded with those of Radnor, built in the reign of James I., but in a style that tells of the traditions of rather an earlier epoch, and, as common report goes, due to the genius of Inigo Jones. It is erected in a long line east and west, with the principal fronts north and south; on either side of the mansion prim-looking gables rise over the windows of the third storey, and stately chimneys keep guard on the roof above. The windows are all ample, well and fitly monialled and transomed. The colour of the stone is a rich warm-tinted gray, passing on the southern front into orange-shades of glorious hue; and the whole edifice wears the aspect of nobility and good taste. Ample gardens with terraces and lawns are spread around, and the tall avenue of limes that leads down from the ancient gates on the main road, is answered by a goodly belt of contemporaneous oaks and beeches circling round the gardens, and shutting them out from the rest of the estate. When you enter the great hall, you observe large square bay windows, and, in the recesses, deer-skins spread out for carpets, with halberts and other arms filling up the corners. The lower rooms are all wainscoted with black oak, and the furniture, mostly as old as the mansion itself, is of that solid stately kind which befitted the dignified style in which our ancestors gloried to live. As you mount the ample stairs, you find yourself amidst an endless series of portraits, from the time of the bluff tyrant King Hal, down to the homely age of good King George,—stiff gentlemen and ladies in doublets and ruffs,—others with cuirasses and long flowing hair, and black dresses and love-locks, be-speaking the well known cavalier principles of the House in the times of the rebellion; and ever and anon gentlemen in long three-quarter frames, with many a square yard of pink or blue velvet for their coats, cuffs turned up to their elbows, waistcoats big enough to make surtouts for any of us degenerate moderns; the forefinger and thumb of one hand on the pummel of the sword, the other gently placed on some gilded table,—the head turned disdainfully aside, or else courting with graceful pride some comely dame in a green negligÉ, or habited as a shepherdess,—the Corydon and Chloe of the court of Queen Anne. The staircase leads to an enormous drawing-room, that looks as if some three or four other rooms had been thrown into one, with two bay-windows on one side, and a fireplace—ah! such a fireplace!—on the other. But here no personages more ancient than the days of George the Second are allowed to show their canvasses on the walls,—the great grandfathers and grandmothers of the present possessors,—the men looking like rakish Quakers, the ladies all in flimsy white muslin, straw hats, and powdered locks. They may have more interest for those to whom they are related, but we always consider them much worse company than their progenitors on the staircase,—those glories and beauties of an earlier day, whom they are themselves destined to join hereafter, when thrust out from their present quarters by a future squire. A stray Sir Joshua may be seen in one corner of the room, and an early Sir Thomas is by one of the windows. The furniture here is of that remarkable, rickety kind, which our own dads admired so much when this nineteenth century of ours was making its appearance, and which—but we may have bad taste herein—we would willingly consign en masse to the kitchen fire or the broker's shop.

Not far from the drawing-room door runs off one of the many long corridors of the mansion, and then at the end is the Closed Chamber. It has never been opened since the year 1718, when the young lady, one of the daughters of the house, that used to sleep in it, lost her lover who had been out for the "right cause," and lost his head for his loyalty to a dethroned sovereign; and she, poor girl, walked into the great fish-pond one night, and was found in the tangled weeds by the old gardener next morning. The squire of that day, her disconsolate father, had the pond immediately drained off, and it is now one of the prettiest flower parterres of the garden: but the lady's elm is still pointed out at one end—a shattered withered trunk—'twas under it the poor thing's body lay. And now at nightfall, and in the depth of the night itself, long-drawn sighs and the rustling of stiff silk may be heard along the passage and by her room-door, while within,—but no one knows nor even talks of what is within,—all that is really known is, that once in the autumn, 'tis now fifty years ago, when the old housekeeper was alive, on a peculiarly still night, while the master was away up in London, and no one but two or three servants left in the gloomy mansion, the door of the chamber burst open with a loud noise, and such a crash was heard within, followed by an unearthly shriek, that the people in the servants' hall below nearly went out of their minds through fright. Next morning, when the gardener had called in the village constable and the smith, and all three had mounted the stairs and had come to the mysterious door, they found within a wainscoted room a worm-eaten bed of ancient form, all in a heap on the floor; one of the windows was broken in, the cobwebs were blowing about in the wind that whistled through the apartment; over the chimney-piece was a portrait, so black that it could be hardly made out, only they could see that it had once shown the lineaments of a young and a female face: but there was nothing, absolutely nothing to indicate the cause, of the disturbance during the night. It is true that the smith, as he was going out, picked up a ribbon near the chimney, which he maliciously declared he knew to be Betty the housemaid's garter, but nothing more ever came of it, so the window was mended, the shutters were closed, and the door has ever since been fastened up with stout coffin screws. There's not a servant that would go to the end of that passage at night and listen with her ear at the keyhole, (though they all say they would not mind doing it at any other door in the house) no, not for a twelvemonth's extra wages.

We have slept in many a chamber of that goodly and hospitable mansion: there was the bachelor's room, a nice little square apartment, about twice as high as it was broad, all panelled in oak, which, however, some Goth of a squire had painted light blue; with a fireplace that would let not only the bachelor, but eke the bachelor's better half, creep inside on a winter's night; and with a curious kind of a bed, not higher from the ground than your knee, but with thin light posts spiring up some dozen of feet aloft, and supporting a superfluity of green damask, enough to make a tent with. In the panel over the fireplace was an apology for a looking-glass, once deemed no doubt an uncommonly correct thing, all cut in facettes and diamonds at the sides and diversified with bouquets of flowers tied by true-lovers' knots in the middle. 'Twas no doubt a bridal gift to some fair lady in the time of King Charles, and then might have gloried in a frame of gold; but now its glories are departed, and, for us at least, it served no higher purpose than to display the horrors of our bristly chin. There's no position in the world more comfortable for a bedroom mirror than over the fireplace; shaving can there be conducted with science and with gusto. And every other panel opened by some wonderful kind of fastening, into a cupboard big enough to stow away more habiliments than ever in our bachelor days we were likely to possess. A quaint little goggle-eyed commode, tortured into fanciful elegance, filled up one corner of the room; and a nondescript table de toilette occupied the other. Here, in a three-cornered arm-chair, the senior piece of furniture in the whole room, have we watched over the flickering ashes of the wood-fed fire for hours; and often when we had shaken hands with our worthy host at ten, have we prolonged our vigil till early morn, amused with the acute ribaldry of Tom Jones, or lost in the intricate wit of Tristram Shandy. The wintry blasts would make the old casement rattle, but we only gave the flaming log another turn,—crack! crack! would go the wood, over went another leaf of the book, and so we continued till taper and eyelid alike failed us.

The Yellow Room was also a capital place to take up your quarters in for the night; there was very pretty sleeping in that vasty bed, where some four might snore side by side, and yet never doubt but that they were each sole occupant of the couch. But it was somewhat melancholy to turn in there by yourself; your taper, though it burned as bright as wax could make it, served to illumine only a small portion of the middle space, while in each corner of the apartment was a mass of black nonentity, of darkness visible, that might make you superstitious and ghostlike. It was something like going to bed in Westminster Hall, and from the fireplace to the bedside, when in the last stage of dishabille, was quite a journey. But there was such a host of arm-chairs with soft downy cushions, such a bevy of footstools, such a goodly couple of ottomans, such a preponderating wardrobe, and such ample splashing-room on the marble surface of the toilette, that here you could expatiate in the morning, and could walk in and out and round the chairs and tables and footstools and ottomans, and back again, for a mile or two before breakfast, simply while dressing. Here were some famous pictures of Cupids and Venuses, and a view of the park-gates, and a drawing of the alcove at the end of the long walk, and an enormous sampler that must have taken two or three years to work, with B. W. A.D. 1732, ending the series of devices. Here, too, were some portly bottles of arquebusade, and elder-flower water always kept over the mantel-piece, and a set of steps, like a small flight of stairs, to mount up into bed by; but the books on the shelves were of a staid and approved description,—Dryden's Virgil, The Spectator, and The Whole Duty of Man, keeping in countenance the sober black-letter Bible and Common Prayer, that held their accustomed station by the bedside. This was the chamber where the neighbouring squires and their dames, when they "crossed the country in a carriage and four," coming some five-and-twenty miles to dinner, used to be lodged for the night. It had once been the nuptial chamber of our worthy host, but he has long since betaken himself to a quieter and less expansive berth.

Up above, and on the higher storey of the house, runs a long gallery, from one end right to the other—like the corridor of a barrack—with bedroom doors opening into it on either side at frequent intervals. Here are lodged the young ladies and gentlemen of the family; the governess and the tutor. The nursery is at one extremity, and the ladies' working-room at the other. The gallery is thickly matted all the way along; and on its walls are hung all those productions of the arts which are not judged of sufficient excellence to be admitted down stairs. There is an enormous map of the estate, and a bird's-eye view of the house, and the first flower-piece by aunt Mary, when she was a little girl at school in Bath, and Mr Henry's black spaniel stuffed, under a glass case. Here, on a wet day, the children can take their wonted exercise, and have even a game at cricket if necessary; here the lady's-maid and nurse-maid sit in the afternoon and work; here, any one who is a very particular friend of the family is allowed to come up and "see the children;" here you may have a swing or a romp according as you are inclined; and here, you cannot but confess, that you have found out one of the most useful and comfortable features of the whole edifice,—an in-door promenade, a domestic gymnasium.

We have been admitted into every room in the house, big and little, up stairs and down stairs. We know the quaint little smoking parlour that was, now turned into the squire's "office," or justice-room. Here he meets his steward and sits at a desk like any dirty cotton lord in his factory; here he keeps his guns and fishing rods; and here, on a small set of shelves, are his books—"Burn's Justice," and "Taplin's Farriery;" here one of his dogs is sure to be lying before the fire, and some aged tenant or other is ever coming in to ask for some little favour or other, which the kind landlord seldom refuses; here he determines what fields shall be put down in turnips this year, and what vagabonds shall be put in the stocks; in short it is the sacrarium of the house,—the place where the primum mobile of the whole is stationed; and, in our eyes, one of the snuggest and most useful appendages of the mansion.

Leading out from this room is a door that you might suppose would conduct you into a closet—but no; it opens on a flight of steps, down which you descend a little, and then find yourself at the edge of an opening that looks like a well. This was part of the ancient manor-house, or castle, which was destroyed in one of the Border feuds, when the Welch and English, in the time of Owen Glyndwr, used to give each other rather warm reception. It then formed the dungeon or prison, which each chieftain of the march country had within his residence, and where he could detain refractory tenants or unpleasant neighbours. The worthy squire has now turned it into his Madeira cellar, and keeps in it a hogshead of the most particular East India that ever left the island and crossed the Line. He has it under his own special lock and key; tastes it only now and then, and threatens to keep it in the cask till his son comes of age.

The real cellars themselves are goodly things to see; none of your cramped up wee bits of things that they build now-a-days, but where, besides the usual stock of beer and strong ale, for the general run of the house and neighbourhood, there is left room enough for stowing away a hogshead brewed on the birth of each child of the family, and destined to remain there till they each attain their one-and-twentieth year. They are fourteen in number, and bear the names of those in whose honour they were filled; there, then, is Master Thomas and Miss Lucy, and Miss Susan and Master William; and so on, through the whole of the rising generation. As for the wine-cellar, 'tis an unfathomable recess; there is port and claret in it enough for the whole county; and the fountain in the court might be made to run sherry for a week before the stock would be exhausted. A pile of champagne-cases stands at one end, and some dozen bins of the extra particulars are built up by themselves. It would do good to the heart of any man to wander about these cellars for a morning.

And it is not far to the church—just beyond the outer garden-hedge where you cross the deep ha-ha, made to keep rabbits and cattle out, and close to the clump of birch-trees that rise on the hill,—an ancient edifice, with a bit of architecture of every period that English antiquaries can boast of. The tower "ivy-mantled," according to the most approved rule; the peal of bells thoroughly harmonious, and allowing triple-bob-majors to be rung on them with the full swing of the lustiest youths of the village. In the chancel is a formidable-looking pew, put up in Charles's time, all in black oak, with quaint figures of angels and dragons, and fantastic flowers, sprawling over every vacant space. Within, it is right comfortably carpeted and cushioned; in the midst is a stove to keep out the cool humours of the church, and to comfort the squire's lady on a Christmas morning; while round the walls of the little chapel, which the pew fills, are all the family monuments, from the stiff-necked and stiff-ruffed knight of the days of the virgin Queen, down to the full-bottomed wig and portentous bands of the judge in the time of George II. A little plain white marble slab in one corner bears the simple inscription,—

MARIA.

1820.

But at this I have often observed that the good lady of the house never looks; and once, during the sermon, I saw the squire, while listlessly gazing upon it, allow the tears to glide down his cheeks as though he was a child.

There's a summer-house at the end of the nut walk, so hidden by bushes and winding paths, that it is hard to find the entrance,—a low squat-looking kind of a place, built in the Dutch fashion, with four windows, one in each side, and with a dome on the top; it stands close by a pond, and is all grown over with ivy. Indeed, when you arrive at the door, you have to remove the clematis and damask rose twigs with your hand, ere you can obtain an entrance. On the walls are numerous names commemorated both with pencil and knife; and in particular, under a true lover's knot, are deeply cut the letters M and H. It is a standing joke at the squire's table between himself and the amiable hostess—but I never could get to the bottom of it—only if any of the children or the company should by any chance make even the most distant allusion to their having been near the summer-house during the day, the squire immediately calls out, "Let me have a glass of that port!—Mary, my love, do you remember the summer-house?"—to which the invariable reply is,—"Henry, dear, I thought you had been more sensible: you must not, indeed!" However, the gardens are truly delightful,—full of rich parterres, and clumps of flowering shrubs; with trim-cut walks of yew and beech, over which the various kinds of the pine tribe and the cedar of Libanus rear their heads in sombre luxuriance. You may walk, I forget how many miles, in the garden, without going over the same ground twice in the same direction; but the gardener is apt to exaggerate on this head. There is enough variety to occupy the most fastidious for an afternoon, and beauty enough to occupy the lover of nature for a week.

Time passes happily and swiftly in a home like this; rides and field-sports, and public business, take up the mornings of the gentlemen; the fine arts, the interchange of neighbouring courtesies, and the visiting of the village give occupation to the ladies. Hospitality, and the sweetest display of domestic elegance, shed an indescribable charm over the cheerful evenings passed in their society,—the family are the honour and main stay of the parish, and, indeed, of many an adjoining one; while the house and grounds are the pride and boast of all that side of the county.