The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

52 REYNOLDS’ WORKS those panoplies. Indeed, for an instant Zoe could scarcely divest herself of the idea that they would either advance toward her, or that a voice would emanate from behind the barred aventayles of the helmets. Speedily recovering her self-possession, Lady Octavian Meredith approached the suits of armour, and inspected them. She endeavoured to lift one of the closed vizors, but it re- sisted the force of her delicate hand, — doubtless becaias the nails forming the rivets on which it moved were completely rusted in their settings. Turning away from these panoplies, Zoe advanced farther into the chapel. It bore all the evi- dences of neglect: the walls were covered with damp, the tall, slender, sculptured shafts which sustained the pointed roof were green with mildew. Some of the windows were totally deficient in glass, and the wind swept through them. At the farther extremity was an organ, placed in a gallery, but the yellow reedlike arrangement of the frontage was so dingy with collected dust, and perhaps with damp likewise, that the original vividness of its colouring could no longer be discerned. A dilapidated staircase led up toward the gal- lery, but the balustrade of bronze, elaborately worked with beautiful devices, remained perfect, though utterly dimmed and disfigured by the encrusted rust. There were several large pictures suspended to the walls; the frames were ruined, the canvass was torn, or else had given way with the effects of time and neglect, and the subjects of the paint- ings were unrecognizable. While gazing about her, and holding up the light in the manner that would best aid her in this survey, Zoe perceived that a portion of the floor of the gallery had given way, and she could thus look up into a part of the interior of the organ. While thus gazing in that direction, Zoe heard the wind come rushing in through the broken windows with renewed force, and as it swept gustily into the chapel, those strange sounds were more audibly renewed than before. An idea struck Zoe; a light flashed in unto her mind; she compre- hended those sounds in an instant. They were caused by the wind rushing up through the dilapidated floor of the gallery, and passing through the pipes of the organ. Ac- cording to the gusty variations of the wind, so were the sounds produced, — solemnly swelling or plaintively wailing, and thus the mystery was explained. CORNICLIOOKS (E(0)