He often
rests there after half an hour's work on one or other of the guns in the
rack; for, though he seldom uses but one, he likes to take the locks to
pieces upon a little bench which he has fitted up, and where he has a
vice, tools, a cartridge-loading apparatus, and so forth, from which the
room acquired its name. With the naked eye, however, as the road is half
a mile distant, it is not possible to distinguish persons, except in
cases of very pronounced individuality. Nevertheless old 'Ettles,' the
keeper, always declared that he could see a hare run up the down from the
park, say a mile and a half. This may be true; but in the gun-room there
is a field-glass, said to have been used at the siege of Seringapatam,
which the squire can bring to bear upon the road in an instant, for from
constant use at the same focus there is a rim round the tarnished brass.
No time, therefore, need be lost in trials; it can be drawn out to the
well-known mark at once. The window itself is large, but there is a
casement in it,--a lesser window,--which can be thrown open with a mere
twist of the thumb on the button, and as it swings open it catches itself
on a hasp. Then the field-glass examines the distant wayfarer.
When people have dwelt for generations in one place they come to know the
history of their immediate world. There was not a waggon that went by
without a meaning to the squire. One perhaps brought a load of wool from
the downs: it was old Hobbes's, whose affairs he had known these forty
years.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333