When the iron tongue of the old gate bell Doth summon the growling grooms from cell, Through cranny and crook They peer and they look, With guns to send the intruders to heaven.[11] But when passwords pass That might "serve a mass,"[12] Then bars are drawn and chains let fall, And you get into Neck-or-Nothing Hall. [11] This is not the word in the MS. [12] Serving mass occupies about twenty-five minutes. CANTO II And never a doubt But when you are in, If you love a whole skin, I'll wager (and win) You'll be glad to get out. _Dr. Growling's Metrical Romance._ The bird's-eye view which the doctor's peep from Parnassus has afforded, may furnish the imagination of the reader with materials to create in his own mind a vague yet not unjust notion of Neck-or-Nothing Hall; but certain details of the Hall itself, its inmates and its customs, may be desired by the matter-of-fact reader or the more minutely curious, and as the author has the difficult task before him of trying to please all tastes, something more definite is required. The Hall itself was, as we have said, a rambling sort of structure. Ramifying from a solid centre, which gave the notion of a founder well to do in the world, additions, without any architectural pretensions to fitness, were _stuck_ on here and there, as whim or necessity suggested or demanded, and a most incongruous mass of gables, roofs, and chimneys, odd windows and blank walls, was the consequence. According to the circumstances of the occupants who inherited the property, the building was either increased or neglected. A certain old bachelor, for example, who in the course of events inherited the property, had no necessity for nurses, nursery-maids, and their consequent suite of apartments; and as he never aspired to the honour of matrimony, the ball-room, the drawing-room, and extra bed-chambers were neglected; but being a fox-hunter, a new kennel and range of stables were built, the dining-room enlarged, and all the ready money he could get at spent in augmenting the plate, to keep pace with the racing-cups he won, and proudly displayed at his drinking-bouts; and when he died suddenly (broke his neck), the plate was seized at the suit of his wine-merchant; and as the heir next in succession got the property in a ruinous condition, it was impossible to keep a stud of horses along with a wife and a large family, so the stables and kennel went to decay, while the ladies and family apartments could only be patched up. When the house was dilapidated, the grounds about it, of course, were ill kept. Fine old trees were there, originally intended to afford shade to walks which were so neglected as to be no more walkable than any other part of the grounds--the vista of aspiring stems indicated where an avenue had been, but neither hoe nor rolling-stone had, for many a year, checked the growth of grass or weed.