ims to
the speculative builder, and have been cut up into alleys of brick and
stucco. But one or two still remain among their hayfields and
rhododendrons.

John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in schoolboys, to know
something about the countryside in which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy,
whenever released from "Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander
with alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth and
Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen Spire, making
friends with cottagers, picking up traditions of an older and more
lawless[2] epoch, and, with these, an ever-increasing love and loyalty
to Harrow. So Byron had wandered a hundred years before.

These solitary rambles, however, were regarded with disfavour by
schoolfellows who lacked John's imaginative temperament. The
Caterpillar, for instance, protested, "Did I see you hobnobbing with a
chaw the other day? I thought so; and you looked like a confounded
bughunter." The Duffer's notions of topography were bounded by the
cricket-ground on the one side of the Hill, and the footer-fields on
the other; and his traditions held nothing much more romantic than A.
J. Webbe's scores at Lord's. Fluff, as has been said, was too far
removed from John to make him more than an occasional companion. And
so, for several terms, John, for the most part, walked alone. By the
time Desmond joined him, he had gleaned a knowledge which fascinated a
friend of like sensibility and imagination. Together they revisited
the old and explored the new. One never-to-be-forgotten day the boys
discovered a deserted house of some pretensions about a mile from the
Hill. Its grounds, covering several acres, were enclosed by a high oak
paling, within which stood a thick belt of trees, effectually
concealing what lay beyond. Grim iron gates, always locked, frowned
upon the wayfarer; but John, flattening an inquisitive nose against the
ironwork, could discern a carriage-drive overgrown with grass and
weeds, and at the end of it a white stone portico. After this the
place became to both boys a sort of Enchanted Castle. A dozen times
they peered through the gates. No one went in or out of the
grass-grown drive. The gatekeeper's lodge was uninhabited; there were
no adjacent cottages where information might be sought. The boys
called it "The Haunted House," and peopled it with ghosts; gorgeous
bucks of the Regency, languishing beauties such as Lawrence