spick and span red brick villa with a slate roof. In fact, however, it
was nothing of the sort, being a building of the fifteenth century, as
a glance at its massive flint walls was sufficient to show. In ancient
times there had been a large Abbey at Boisingham, two miles away,
which, the records tell, suffered terribly from an outbreak of the
plague in the fifteenth century. After this the monks obtained ten
acres of land, known as Molehill, by grant from the de la Molle of the
day, and so named either on account of their resemblance to a molehill
(of which more presently) or after the family. On this elevated spot,
which was supposed to be peculiarly healthy, they built the little
house now called Honham Cottage, whereto to fly when next the plague
should visit them.

And as they built it, so, with some slight additions, it had remained
to this day, for in those ages men did not skimp their flint, and oak,
and mortar. It was a beautiful little spot, situated upon the flat top
of a swelling hill, which comprised the ten acres of grazing ground
originally granted, and was, strange to say, still the most
magnificently-timbered piece of ground in the country side. For on the
ten acres of grass land there stood over fifty great oaks, some of
them pollards of the most enormous antiquity, and others which had, no
doubt, originally grown very close together, fine upstanding trees
with a wonderful length and girth of bole. This place, Colonel
Quaritch's aunt, old Mrs. Massey, had bought nearly thirty years
before when she became a widow, and now, together with a modest income
of two hundred a year, it had passed to him under her will.

Shaking himself clear of his sad thoughts, Harold Quaritch turned
round at his own front door to contemplate the scene. The long,
single-storied house stood, it has been said, at the top of the rising
land, and to the south and west and east commanded as beautiful a view
as is to be seen in the county. There, a mile or so away to the south,
situated in the midst of grassy grazing grounds, and flanked on either
side by still perfect towers, frowned the massive gateway of the old
Norman castle. Then, to the west, almost at the foot of Molehill, the
ground broke away in a deep bank clothed with timber, which led the
eye down by slow descents into the beautiful valley of the Ell. Here
the silver river wound its gentle way through lush and poplar-bordered
marshes, where the cattle stand knee-deep i