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 painted, fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised
foreigners. John connected it in fancy with the days when the gorgeous
Duke of Chandos (who had Handel for his chapel-organist and was a
Governor of Harrow and guardian of Lord Rodney) kept court at Cannons.
He told Caesar anecdotes of Dr. Parr, with his preposterous wig, his
clouds of tobacco, his sesquipedalian quotations, coming down from
Stanmore; and also of the great Lord Abercorn, another Governor of the
school, who used to go out shooting in the blue riband of the Garter,
and who entertained Pitt and Sir Walter Scott at Bentley Priory.

"What a lot you know!" said Caesar. "And you have a memory like my
father's. I'm beginning to think, Jonathan, that you'll be a swell like
him some day--in the Cabinet, perhaps."

"Ah," said John, with shining eyes.

"I hope I shall live to see it," Desmond added, with feelin