Colonel Quaritch, V.C. | Page 4

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 in flowers; past quaint wooden
mill-houses, through Boisingham Old Common, windy looking even
now, and brightened here and there with a dash of golden gorse, till it
was lost beneath the picturesque cluster of red-tiled roofs that marked
the ancient town. Look which way he would, the view was lovely, and
equal to any to be found in the Eastern counties, where the scenery is
fine enough in its own way, whatever people may choose to say to the
contrary, whose imaginations are so weak that they require a mountain
and a torrent to excite them into activity.
Behind the house to the north there was no view, and for a good reason,
for here in the very middle of the back garden rose a mound of large
size and curious shape, which completely shut out the landscape. What
this mound, which may perhaps have covered half an acre of ground,
was, nobody had any idea. Some learned folk write it down a Saxon
tumulus, a presumption to which its ancient name, "Dead Man's
Mount," seemed to give colour. Other folk, however, yet more learned,
declared it to be an ancient British dwelling, and pointed triumphantly
to a hollow at the top, wherein the ancient Britishers were supposed to
have moved, lived, and had their being--which must, urged the
opposing party, have been a very damp one. Thereon the late Mrs.
Massey, who was a British dwellingite, proceeded to show with much
triumph /how/ they had lived in the hole by building a huge
mushroom-shaped roof over it, and thereby turning it into a summer-
house, which, owing to unexpected difficulties in the construction of
the roof, cost a great deal of money. But as the roof was slated, and as it
was found necessary to pave the hollow with tiles and cut surface
drains in it, the result did not clearly prove its use as a dwelling place
before the Roman conquest. Nor did it make a very good summer
house. Indeed it now served as a store place for the gardener's tools and
for rubbish generally.

CHAPTER II
THE COLONEL MEETS THE SQUIRE
As Colonel Quaritch was contemplating these various views and
reflecting that on the whole he had done well to come and live at
Honham Cottage, he was suddenly startled by a loud voice saluting him
from about twenty yards distance with such peculiar vigour that he
fairly jumped.
"Colonel Quaritch, I believe," said, or rather shouted, the voice from
somewhere down the drive.
"Yes," answered the Colonel mildly, "here I am."
"Ah, I thought it was you. Always tell a military man, you know.
Excuse me, but I am resting for a minute, this last pull is an
uncommonly stiff one. I always used to tell my dear old friend, Mrs.
Massey, that she ought to have the hill cut away a bit just here. Well,
here goes for it," and after a few heavy steps his visitor emerged from
the shadow of the trees into the sunset light which was playing on the
terrace before the house.
Colonel Quaritch glanced up curiously to see who the owner of the
great voice might be, and his eyes lit upon as fine a specimen of
humanity as he had seen for a long while. The man was old, as his
white hair showed, seventy perhaps, but that was the only sign of decay
about him. He was a splendid man, broad and thick and strong, with a
keen, quick eye, and a face sharply chiselled, and clean shaved, of the
stamp