A picture in oils, painted upon wood, and by no means a bad specimen of the arts, hung over the carved oak mantel--the half-length portrait of a fine soldierly looking man. This is the soldier of the covenant--the grim Roundhead, Sir Lawrence Rushmere--for so his enemies called him. Look at him well. His bold honest English face deserves a nearer scrutiny. Examine his broad brows, his large clear blue eyes, his firm nose, and resolute mouth, before you call that man a traitor.
He has drawn the sword he holds in his hand in what, after mature consideration, he considers the right cause, and being once fully convinced that it is so, has thrown his whole heart and soul into the struggle. If you can overturn a rock whose roots are embedded in the depths of ocean, you may hope to turn him from his purpose.
This old family portrait is held in great reverence by his last descendant, who bears his name; and though degenerated into a rude half educated tiller of the ancestral acres, Lawrence Rushmere thinks himself a great man, while looking upon the noble portrait of his remote progenitor.
The old high-backed arm-chair, so richly carved, in which the farmer smokes his pipe after the labours of the day are over, is always placed fronting that picture.
He sees a great resemblance between himself and the brave soldier of the covenant, and draws the attention of every stranger that comes to the house to the picture, by asking, "if they do not remark the likeness?" A harmless vanity, which amuses without giving offence, and he generally ends by saying,
"Yes, Sir. That brave knight was my great, great grandfather, and he has often sat in this very chair in which I am sitting now. It shall never go out of the family while there's a Rushmere left to fill his place."
Look at those long rows of pewter dishes and platters that grace the shelves. These too are relics of a former age. No doubt the said Sir Lawrence has taken many a good dinner off them. Yet no one points them out as objects worthy of notice, though they are kept as bright and clean as if required for daily use. They have been completely laid upon the shelf half a century ago.
The rest of the furniture of the room is as old as the Protectorate; especially that large Venetian mirror, in its beautiful frame of ebony. What a prize for a modern antiquary.