_a._ Chamber, 11½ ft. × 10 ft.; _b._ Bed; _c._ Locker; _d._ Entrance, 2 ft. 3 in. high; _e._ Sunkenway leading to the door and beyond to water.] Do those two types of bed in one hovel 10 feet square signify that men of two nationalities occupied it, each with his bed-ideal, which he would not abandon? We cannot say; probably it means no more than this, the confluence of two streams of tradition. The wooden coffin is neither more nor less than the wooden four-poster or rather closed bed reduced to the smallest possible dimensions. Among the megalithic people the stone grave was gradually reduced in dimensions from the mighty dolmen to the small kistvaen. The great tumulus or cairn is now represented by the little green mound in the churchyard, and the menhir or long stone, rude and uninscribed, has its modern counterpart much altered in the headstone. The enclosed box-like stone tombs that were erected during last century were survivals of the kistvaen, as were also the sarcophagi of the ancients. The wooden coffin is but in small the wooden chamber of the dead of our Norse ancestors, which was itself but a reproduction of the closed bedchamber. For myself, when I think how much that is great and vigorous and noble comes to us through our Norse ancestry, I regret that by the abandonment of the four-poster we are casting aside one of its most cherished traditions, and yet there remains matter of consolation in the thought that, for the last sleep of all, we revert to the fashion of bed _a la Scandinave_. V. Striking a Light. “Please, sir, the rats be a rampagin’ in the lumber-room as makes the blood curl!” For fifty years I had never been into that lumber-room. It is situated up a steep flight of steps in the back kitchen, and had once been inhabited by a button-boy. Here is an extract from my grandmother’s account-book for the year 1803:-- Footman £14 Page 4 Cook 12 Housemaid 7 Verily prices have risen since 1803. However, to return to the four-pounder. He inhabited this room some ninety years ago: then it was abandoned, finally locked up, and the key lost. About fifty years ago, as a boy, I did explore the place, through the window, after nests. My grandfather died. Then my father succeeded, and the room remained unopened during his reign. My father died, and I succeeded to the old house. I had been in it some years, when the other day the kitchen-maid complained that the rats in this lumber-room over the back kitchen made her blood “curl,” by which she meant, presumably, “curdle;” till then I had never thought of an exploration.