So the scholar and lover of books came to the farm-house, which Harold Jerningham had taken care to make weather-tight and snug before the exile’s arrival. De Bergerac recognized the handiwork of his friend in the arrangement of this comfortable English hermitage. There were a few rare old Dutch pictures, a small head by Holbein, a highly-finished little bit by Canaletti, hanging in the oak-panelled parlour, which no farm-bailiff had been privileged to gaze upon. There were quaint little inlaid cabinets between the windows, with that delightful shabbiness of aspect and mellow depth of tint which distinguishes the treasures of Christie and Manson’s saleroom from the glaring freshness of modern marqueterie. And on the cabinets were fragile odds and ends of Derby and Worcester, Chelsea and Battersea, intermingled with those dingy-looking bronzes and intaglios which the soul of the collector loveth. And the biggest room in the old farm-house, once a kitchen, had been lined from floor to ceiling with carved oaken shelves, for the reception of the newcomer’s library; while the great yawning fireplace, in which hinds and shepherds had supped their evening ale, and roasted their sturdy legs, in the days that were gone, was now lined with encaustic tiles, and furnished with a modern-antique grate of black iron-work and glittering steel. When Harold Jerningham was pleased to be generous, he obeyed his impulses in a princely fashion. He was not a good man; but his vices and virtues were alike of the _vieille roche_, and were instinct with a kind of dignity. Let Lucifer fall never so low, he is the prince of devils still, and will show himself grander in his debasement than fiends of meaner rank.