Surely, he thought, the castle of the "Knight of the
Oracle" could not be grander than this great room of Cedar House.
The rich dark wood of its walls and floor--all rudely smoothed with the
broadaxe and the whipsaw--hung overhead in massive beams. From these
low, blackened timbers there swung many antique lamps, splendid enough
for a palace and strangely out of place in a log house of the
wilderness. On the rough walls there were also large sconces of
burnished silver but poorly filled with tallow candles. In the bare
spaces between these silver sconces were the heads of wild animals
mingled with many rifles, both old and new, and other arms of the
hunter. Over the tall mantelpiece there were crossed two untarnished
swords which had been worn by the judge's father in the Revolution. On
the red cedar of the floor, polished by wear and rubbing, there lay the
skins of wild beasts, together with costly foreign rugs. The same
strange mixture of rudeness and refinement was to be seen everywhere
throughout the room. The table standing in the centre of the floor,
ready for the evening meal, was made of unplaned boards, rudely put
together by the unskilled hands of the backwoods.
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