"Not at all," said Walter, abruptly. "I have told you I know very little about the family. What is it we came to see?--not this wretched place which makes me sick. The past should carry off its shell with it, and not leave these old clothes to rot here."
"Oh!" cried little Mr. Bannatyne, with a shudder. "I never suspected I was bringing in an iconoclast. That mantelpiece is a grand work of art, Lord Erradeen. Look at that serpent twisted about among the drapery--you'll not see such work now; and the ermine on that mantle just stands out in every hair, for all the grime and the smoke. It is the legend beneath the shield that is most interesting in the point of view of the family. It's a sort of rhyming slogan, or rather it's an addition to the old slogan, 'Live, Me'even,' which everybody knows."
Walter felt a mingled attraction and repulsion which held him there undecided in front of the great old fireplace, like Hercules or any other hero between the symbolical good and evil. He had a great curiosity to know what all this meant mingled with an angry disinclination impossible to put into words. Mr. Bannatyne, who of course knew nothing of what was going on in his mind, took upon himself the congenial task of tracing the inscription out. It was doggerel, bad enough to satisfy every aspiration of an antiquary. It was as follows:--
"Né fleyt atte Helle, né fond for Heeven, Live, Me'even."
"You will see how it fits in with the other motto," cried the enthusiast. "'Baithe Sune and Syne,' which has a grand kind of indifference to time and all its changes that just delights me. And the other has the same sentiment, 'Neither frightened for hell nor keen about heaven.' It is the height of impiety," he said, with a subdued chuckle; "but that's not inappropriate--it's far from inappropriate; it is just, in fact, what might have been expected. The warlock lord----"
"I hope you won't think me ungrateful," cried Walter, "but I don't think I want to know any more about that old ruffian. There is something in the place that oppresses me." He took out from his pocket a handful of coins. (It was with the pleasure of novelty that he shook them together, gold and silver in one shining heap, and threw half a dozen of them to the little group before the fire.) "For heaven's sake let us get out of this!" he said, nervously. He could not have explained the sentiment of horror, almost of fear, that was in his mind. "If it is mine," he said, as they went down the spiral stair, groping against the black humid wall, "I shall pull it down and let in some air and clear the filth away."