The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

What was this to be--this vestibule, or whatever they called it? But

gazing at the skylight, inspiration came to him.

"Ah! the billiard-room!"

When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in the centre, he

turned to Irene:

"Waste this on plants? You take my advice and have a billiard table

here!"

Irene smiled. She had lifted her veil, banding it like a nun's coif

across her forehead, and the smile of her dark eyes below this seemed to

Swithin more charming than ever. He nodded. She would take his advice he

saw.

He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he described

as "spacious"; but fell into such raptures as he permitted to a man of

his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which he descended by stone steps,

Bosinney going first with a light.

"You'll have room here," he said, "for six or seven hundred dozen--a

very pooty little cellar!"

Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from the copse

below, Swithin came to a stop.

"There's a fine view from here," he remarked; "you haven't such a thing

as a chair?"

A chair was brought him from Bosinney's tent.

"You go down," he said blandly; "you two! I'll sit here and look at the

view."

He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and upright, with one

hand stretched out, resting on the nob of his cane, the other planted on

his knee; his fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing with its flat

top the pale square of his face; his stare, very blank, fixed on the

landscape.

He nodded to them as they went off down through the fields. He was,

indeed, not sorry to be left thus for a quiet moment of reflection. The

air was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the prospect a fine one,

a remarka.... His head fell a little to one side; he jerked it up and

thought: Odd! He--ah! They were waving to him from the bottom! He put

up his hand, and moved it more than once. They were active--the prospect

was remar.... His head fell to the left, he jerked it up at once; it

fell to the right. It remained there; he was asleep.

And asleep, a sentinel on the--top of the rise, he appeared to rule over

this prospect--remarkable--like some image blocked out by the special

artist, of primeval Forsytes in pagan days, to record the domination of

mind over matter!

And all the unnumbered generations of his yeoman ancestors, wont of a

Sunday to stand akimbo surveying their little plots of land, their grey

unmoving eyes hiding their instinct with its hidden roots of violence,

their instinct for possession to the exclusion of all the world--all

these unnumbered generations seemed to sit there with him on the top of

the rise.