The Argosy — page 397: what you’re looking at

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

376 Yosodhara. sentimental point of view: at least to the eyes that now scrutinised it = but whatever charm it possessed was certainly not due to its ancient or picturesque aspect, for painters and plasterers, carpenters and joiners, had done their best to modernise it in the most commonplace style of the present era. A very cursory glance satisfied Rivers’ eyes, and even Kerr couldn’t get much poetry out of the bare boards, whitewashed ceilings and grained paint. But with the rooms on the other side it was different. Here the modern patchwork had been made under the restraint of an artist’s surveillance. Mr. Dalgleish had exercised this so successfully that. it seemed that not only most of the place, but all, had arisen in the Ages of Faith. Two of the rooms were comparatively small, and their interest was soon exhausted; but the third was a long high chamber, with carved oak panels, and a ceiling of vaulted stone. The windows were small 3. and through their stained glass the sun shot long, many-coloured arrows, that spent themselves in little pools of red and blue and yellow, on the stone floor. This room had not been altogether dismantled. There was an Indian cabinet, there were strangely made images, and some oak furniture black with age. A cross was carved in the oak at one end of the room, and from the gloom over the door at the other end flashed the yellow eyes and gleaming teeth of a Bengal tiger’s head. In the whole place was a bewildering blending of the medizval and the Oriental. ‘What colouring,” said Rivers, when they had stood silent for a moment. ‘‘ What an effect!” ‘Not bad,” assented Kerr, trying the drawers of the cabinet one by one, and shutting each up again with its emptiness and its dusty corners and its untold story. ‘‘I say, isn’t it said that the late lamented was a Brahmin or something P ” “He was a Buddhist, anyway, and gentlemen of that persuasion have an awkward knack of turning up again years after they are sup- posed to be put comfortably away,” said Rivers. “Are you quite sure his astral shell isn’t looking over your shoulder now ?” he added, so suddenly as to make Kerr look round with a start, ending in a laugh. ‘‘ At any rate, I mean to look round the place. I might find a receipt for the elixir of life or something of that kind.” ‘Look away,” said Rivers; “I’m going to make a pencil sketch of this interior. I shall bring my colours to-morrow, and make a_ be- ginning on my picture.” With which he established himself in a great arm-chair against the wall, and began to work, while Kerr wandered idly about the rooms, curiously examining everything. The artist began a sketch of the room, but presently more curves than angles began to show themselves on the paper, and before long there was a pretty accurate drawing—not of the Indo-medizva CONMNICLMOOOKS (EO)