For he liked to see how each Sir John , and Sir Hugh , and Sir Ralph , and Sir Randal , had left his mark upon the place , each after his own taste ; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors ' work than of disturbing their graves . For now the house looked like a real live house , that had a history , and had grown and grown as the world grew ; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grandfather was , who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing , which looked as if it bad been all spawned in a night , as mushrooms are . From which you may collect -LRB- if you have wit enough -RRB- that Sir John was a very sound-headed , sound-hearted squire , and just the man to keep the country side in order , and show good sport with his hounds . But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates , as if they had been Dukes or Bishops , but round the back way , and a very long way round it was ; and into a little back-door , where the ash-boy let them in , yawning horribly ; and then in a passage the housekeeper met them , in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown , that Tom mistook her for My Lady herself , and she gave Grimes solemn orders about `` You will take care of this , and take care of that , '' as if he was going up the chimneys , and not Tom . And Grimes listened , and said every now and then , under his voice , `` You 'll mind that , you little beggar ? '' and Tom did mind , all at least that he could . And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room , all covered up in sheets of brown paper , and bade them begin , in a lofty and tremendous voice ; and so after a whimper or two , and a kick from his master , into the grate Tom went , and up the chimney , while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture ; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments , but met with very slight encouragement in return . How many chimneys Tom swept I can not say ; but he swept so many that he got quite tired , and puzzled too , for they were not like the town flues to which he was accustomed , but such as you would find -- if you would only get up them and look , which perhaps you would not like to do -- in old country-houses , large and crooked chimneys , which had been altered again and again , till they ran one into another , anastomosing -LRB- as Professor Owen would say -RRB- considerably . So Tom fairly lost his way in them ; not that he cared much for that , though he was in pitchy darkness , for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground ; but at last , coming down as he thought the right chimney , he came down the wrong one , and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which he had never seen before . Tom had never seen the like . He had never been in gentlefolks ' rooms but when the carpets were all up , and the curtains down , and the furniture huddled together under a cloth , and the pictures covered with aprons and dusters ; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in . And now he saw , and he thought the sight very pretty . The room was all dressed in white , -- white window-curtains , white bed-curtains , white furniture , and white walls , with just a few lines of pink here and there . The carpet was all over gay little flowers ; and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames , which amused Tom very much . There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen , and pictures of horses and dogs . The horses he liked ; but the dogs he did not care for much , for there were no bull-dogs among them , not even a terrier . But the two pictures which took his fancy most were , one a man in long garments , with little children and their mothers round him , who was laying his hand upon the children 's heads . That was a very pretty picture , Tom thought , to hang in a lady 's room . For he could see that it was a lady 's room by the dresses which lay about . The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross , which surprised Tom much .
He fancied that he had seen something XXXXX it in a shop-window .
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