this vast pile of building was divided into two spacious
courts, one of which contained the stables, barns,
and offices, while the other was reserved for the
family and the guests by whom the hospitable mansion
was almost constantly crowded. In the last-mentioned
part of the house was a great gallery, with deeply
embayed windows filled with painted glass, a floor
of polished oak, walls of the same dark lustrous material,
hung with portraits of stiff beauties, some in ruff
and farthingale, and some in a costume of an earlier
period among whom was Margaret Barton, who brought
the manor of Middleton into the family; frowning warriors,
beginning with Sir Ralph Assheton, knight-marshal
of England in the reign of Edward IV., and surnamed
“the black of Assheton-under-line,” the
founder of the house, and husband of Margaret Barton
before mentioned, and ending with Sir Richard Assheton,
grandfather of the present owner of the mansion, and
one of the heroes of Flodden; grave lawyers, or graver
divines—a likeness running through all,
and showing they belonged to one line—a
huge carved mantelpiece, massive tables of walnut or
oak, and black and shining as ebony, set round with
high-backed chairs. Here, also, above stairs,
there were long corridors looking out through lattices
upon the court, and communicating with the almost countless
dormitories; while, on the floor beneath, corresponding
passages led to all the principal chambers, and terminated
in the grand entrance hall, the roof of which being
open and intersected by enormous rafters, and crooks
of oak, like the ribs of some “tall ammiral,”
was thought from this circumstance, as well as from
its form, to resemble “a ship turned upside
down.” The lower beams were elaborately
carved and ornamented with gilded bosses and sculptured
images, sustaining shields emblazoned with the armorial
bearings of the Asshetons. As many as three hundred
matchlocks, in good and serviceable condition, were
ranged round the entrance-hall, besides corselets,
Almayne rivets, steel caps, and other accoutrements;
this stand of arms having been collected by Sir Richard’s
predecessor, during the military muster made in the
country in 1574, when he had raised and equipped a
troop of horse for Queen Elizabeth. Outside the
mansion was a garden, charmingly laid out in parterres
and walks, and not only carried to the edge of the
moat, but continued beyond it till it reached a high
knoll crowned with beech-trees. A crest of tall
twisted chimneys, a high roof with quaintly carved
gables, surmounted by many gilt vanes, may serve to
complete the picture of Middleton Hall.
On a lovely summer evening, two young persons of opposite
sexes were seated on a bench placed at the foot of
one of the largest and most umbrageous of the beech-trees
crowning the pleasant eminence before mentioned; and
though differing in aspect and character, the one being
excessively fair, with tresses as light and fleecy
as the clouds above them, and eyes as blue and tender
as the skies—and the other distinguished
by great manly beauty, though in a totally different
style; still there was a sufficiently strong likeness
between them, to proclaim them brother and sister.
Profound melancholy pervaded the countenance of the
young man, whose handsome brow was clouded by care—while
the girl, though sad, seemed so only from sympathy.