The Water Ghost and Others | Page 6

of Edward the Confessor; that is to say, the main portion of the
structure, erected in Edward's time by the first Baron Bangletop, has
that square, substantial, stony aspect which to the eye versed in
architecture identifies it at once as a product of that enlightened era.
Later owners, the successive Barons Bangletop, have added to its
original dimensions, putting Queen Anne wings here, Elizabethan ells
there, and an Italian-Renaissance facade on the river front. A
Wisconsin water tower, connected with the main building by a low
Gothic alleyway, stands to the south; while toward the east is a Greek
chapel, used by the present occupant as a store-room for his wife's
trunks, she having lately returned from Paris with a wardrobe

calculated to last through the first half of the coming London season.
Altogether Bangletop Hall is an impressive structure, and at first sight
gives rise to various emotions in the aesthetic breast; some cavil, others
admire. One leading architect of Berlin travelled all the way from his
German home to Bangletop Hall to show that famous structure to his
son, a student in the profession which his father adorned; to whom he is
said to have observed that, architecturally, Bangletop Hall was
"cosmopolitan and omniperiodic, and therefore a liberal education to all
who should come to study and master its details." In short, Bangletop
Hall was an object-lesson to young architects, and showed them at a
glance that which they should ever strive to avoid.
Strange to say, for quite two centuries had Bangletop Hall remained
without a tenant, and for nearly seventy-five years it had been in the
market for rent, the barons, father and son, for many generations having
found it impossible to dwell within its walls, and for a very good reason:
no cook could ever be induced to live at Bangletop for a longer period
than two weeks. Why the queens of the kitchen invariably took what is
commonly known as French leave no occupant could ever learn,
because, male or female, the departed domestics never returned to tell,
and even had they done so, the pride of the Bangletops would not have
permitted them to listen to the explanation. The Bangletop escutcheon
was clear of blots, no suspicion even of a conversational blemish
appearing thereon, and it was always a matter of extreme satisfaction to
the family that no one of its scions since the title was created had ever
been known to speak directly to any one of lesser rank than himself,
communication with inferiors being always had through the medium of
a private secretary, himself a baron, or better, in reduced circumstances.
The first cook to leave Bangletop under circumstances of a Gallic
nature--that is, without known cause, wages, or luggage--had been
employed by Fitzherbert Alexander, seventeenth Baron of Bangletop,
through Charles Mortimor de Herbert, Baron Peddlington, formerly of
Peddlington Manor at Dunwoodie-on-the-Hike, his private secretary, a
handsome old gentleman of sixty-five, who had been deprived of his
estates by the crown in 1629 because he was suspected of having
inspired a comic broadside published in those troublous days, and
directed against Charles the First, which had set all London in a roar.
This broadside, one of very few which are not preserved in the British

Museum--and a greater tribute to its rarity could not be devised--was
called, "A Good Suggestion as to ye Proper Use of ye Chinne
Whisker," and consisted of a few lines of doggerel printed beneath a
caricature of the king, with the crown hanging from his goatee, reading
as follows:
"_Ye King doth sporte a gallous grey goatee Uponne ye chinne, where
every one may see. And since ye Monarch's head's too small to holde
With comfort to himselfe ye crowne of gold, Why not enwax and
hooke ye goatee rare, And lette ye British crown hang down from
there?_"
[Illustration]
Whether or no the Baron of Peddlington was guilty of this traitorous
effusion no one, not even the king, could ever really make up his mind.
The charge was never fully proven, nor was De Herbert ever able to
refute it successfully, although he made frantic efforts to do so. The
king, eminently just in such matters, gave the baron the benefit of the
doubt, and inflicted only half the penalty prescribed, confiscating his
estates, and letting him keep his head and liberty. De Herbert's family
begged the crown to reverse the sentence, permitting them to keep the
estates, the king taking their uncle's head in lieu thereof, he being
unmarried and having no children who would mourn his loss. But
Charles was poor rather than vindictive at this period, and preferring to
adopt the other course, turned a deaf ear to the petitioners. This was
probably one of the earliest factors in the decadence of literature