The high ceiling, once finely carved and gilt,
was foul with dirt and cobwebs; the naked walls at either end of the
room were stained with damp; and the cold of the marble floor struck
through the narrow strip of matting laid down, parallel with the
windows, as a foot-path for passengers across the wilderness of the
room. No better name for it could have been devised than the name which
old Mazey had found. "Freeze-your-Bones" accurately described, in three
words, the Banqueting-Hall at St. Crux.
"Do you never light a fire in this dismal place?" asked Magdalen.
"It all depends on which side of Freeze-your-Bones his honor the
admiral lives," said old Mazey. "His honor likes to shift his quarters,
sometimes to one side of the house, sometimes to the other. If he lives
Noathe of Freeze-your-Bones--which is where you've just come
from--we don't waste our coals here. If he lives South of
Freeze-your-Bones--which is where we are going to next--we light the
fire in the grate and the charcoal in the pan. Every night, when we do
that, the damp gets the better of us: every morning, we turn to again,
and get the better of the damp."
With this remarkable explanation, old Mazey led the way to the lower
end of the Hall, opened more doors, and showed Magdalen through another
suite of rooms, four in number, all of moderate size, and all furnished
in much the same manner as the rooms in the northern wing.
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