He had no difficulty about finding his way to the drawing-room, for a stream of red-coated guests was already setting thither from their respective chambers, and he entered it with them unannounced.  This was the only apartment in the house which did not bear traces of mischievous damage, because, as on the present occasion, it was used for exactly five minutes every evening, and at no other time whatever.  After dinner the Squire’s guests invariably adjourned to the billiard-table or the library, and the yellow drawing-room was left alone in its magnificence.  This neglected apartment had probably excited more envy in the female mind than any at Crompton, although there were drawing-rooms galore there, as well as one or two such exquisite boudoirs as might have tempted a nun from her convent.  It was a burning shame, said the matrons of Breakneckshire, that the finest room in the county should not have a lawful mistress to grace it; and it was not their fault (as has been hinted) that that deficiency had not been supplied.  It was really a splendid room, not divided in any way, as is usual with rooms of such vast extent, but comprehending every description of architectural vagary—­bay-windows, in each of which half a dozen persons might sit and move, and recesses where as many could ensconce themselves, without their presence being dreamed of by the occupants of the central space.

At present, however, the flood of light that poured from chandelier and bracket, and flashed upon the gorgeous furniture and on the red coats of the guests, seemed to forbid concealment, and certainly afforded a splendid spectacle—­a diplomatic reception, or a fancy-ball, could for brilliancy scarcely have exceeded it, though the parallel went no farther; for, with all this pomp and circumstance, there was not the slightest trace of ceremony.  New guests, like Yorke himself, flocked in, and stood and stared, or paraded the room; while the less recent arrivals laughed and chatted together noisily, with their backs to the fires—­of which there were no less than three alight—­or lolled at full length upon the damask sofas.  These persons were not, upon the whole, of an aristocratic type; many of them, indeed, were of good birth, and all had taken the usual pains with their costume, but a life of dissipation had set its vulgarizing mark on them:  on the seniors the pallid and exhausted look of the roue was indeed rarely seen—­country air and rough exercise had forbidden that—­but drink and hard living had written their autographs upon them in another and worse handwriting.  Blotches and pimples had indeed so erased their original likeness to gentlemen that it was even whispered by the scandalous that it was to prevent the confusion with his menials, that must needs have otherwise arisen, that the Squire of Crompton compelled his guests to wear red coats.  The habitues of the place, who were the contemporaries of the Squire, had, as it were, gone to seed.