The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-06-13
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CHRISTMAS AT THE BANK.
ICONTItIUED.

".
I began by mentioning the year
18a-. Well, it was in that year the
old house, where ever SO many gene
rations of Swinbrooks had done bu-
siness, became. clearly too old to
last out another. It had never been
anything more shan an old shop
and back parlor, with their sum
burners, encaustic tiles and all that
rubbish that I had seen about Lom-
bard street now. However, it was
almost. tpmbling about our ears ut
last; so it was decided to pull it down
and rebuild it. The head clerk
moved out, and place was found
where we could carry on business
during the rebuilding.
1t was in O narrow lane, lying a
little way off Lombard street, and
was altogether in as quaint, quiet o
neighborhood. as you could find any
where, let alone In the heart of q
great city, It was some fifty yards
up the lane from the main street on
either side, and stood back from the
roadway o little, with its own par
ticular row Of posts in front of it.
The house had been q good bit al
tered since it was built from the
style of the architecture. I have no
doubt it was some great merchants
house, at time when merchants still
lived in the city. There remained
the broad staircase, with its dark
oak wainscotting and carved balus-
trade, wide landings and broad burly
looking doors, surmounted by cary
lngs In the manner of Grinling Glib
bons. The staircase was lighted
from above by a large lantern, spring
ing from small cupola, on whicL I
recollect to have seen sprawling gods
that might have been Thornhill's.
They were painted over now, as being
like.
A little pave court, arched over ut
the entrance, ran at one side of the
house, and led on the right to some
half dozen houses, similar in cha
racter to ours, and on the left to q
church with its ohurch-yard, through
which there was q tagged pathway
up to the door; an entrance little
used, as the few church-goers of the
nelghborhood went i'll mostly by the
front door in the main street.
1t was one of the churches built
after the great fire by Sir Christie
pher Wren, who, in this case, ham
pered by the smallness of the means
at his disposal, and, not, suppose,
having yet discovered the secret of
building cheaply exquisite churches,
like that in Walbrook, had just
shown q touch of his genius in the
tower and spire, and had left the
rest mostly to the brick-layers. The
interior had little to recommend it
beyond the quaiptness that aged and
a bygone style gave to the heavy
black oak fittings. Nevertheless, L
used to go in sometimes of q quiet
sunny Sunday morning and lulled
by the monotonous drone of the
parson dream Of the time when the
daughters of the merchant who had
lived there in the big house-that
was his monument, perhaps, with
the swollen cherubs-lovely and bril-
liant, in powder, patches and hoops,
would rustic into the church and, to
the great scandal of the old city
danes, sing the psalms of Hopkins,
with fourishes learnt at the opera
from the newest male soprano. It
was the pew affected to the use of
the inhabitants of the big house
their house-that I was sitting in;
not one of your wretched little mo-
dern pews, but q good sized place,
with seats round the sides of it, and
room for your legs in the middle;
walled in SO high by carved oak that
you could not see the verger as he
passed, but only the gilt mace which
progressed solemnly along the hori-
Zon.
CONTINUED IN OUR NEXT.