Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-12-27

now, and nobody quite knew the history, for in twenty years many things are fortunately forgotten. But there was history, and a scandal, and the marriage was broken off almost on the very day before it was to have taken place. And after that it leaked out in the neighborhood-it was in Essex-that the young lady, who by the way was large heiress, had gone off her head, presumably with grief, and been confined in an asylum, where she was believed still to remain
 Perhaps it was the thought of this one womans face, the woman he had once seen walking down the drift, her figure nmned out against the stormy sky, that led him to think of the other face, the face hidden in the mad house. At any rate, with a sigh, or rather groan, he swung himself round from the gate, and began walking homeward at brisk pace.
 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, as has been said, at the top of the rising land, and to the south and west and east commanded as beau- tiful a view as is to be seen in that country. There, mile or so away to the south, situa- ted in the midst of grassy grazing grounds, flanked on either side by still perfect towers, drowned the massive gateway of the old Norman castle. Then, to the west, almost at the foot of the Molehi1l, the ground broke away in 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 frightened here and there with a dash of golden gorse, till it was lost in 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, what ever people, whose imaginations are so weak that they require a mountain and a torrent to excite them into activity, may choose to say to the contrary.
 Behind the house to the north there was no view, and for good reason, for here, in the very middle of the back garden, rose a mound of large size and curious shape, which com pletely shut the landscape out What this mound, which may perhaps have covered half an acre of ground, was nobody had any idea. Some learned folk said that it was a Saxon tumulus, presumption to which its ancient name, "Dead Mans Mount," seemed to give color. Other folk, however, yet moro learneu, QeclaTeO Inab lU WAS au ancient British dwelling, and pointed triumphantly to 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 very damp l one. Thereon, the late Mrs. Massey, who
 was British dwelhngite, proceeded to show with much triumph how they had lived ir the hole by building huge mushroom shaped roof over 1t, and thereby turning it into 6 e1mmer house, which, owing to the unex pected difficulties in the construction of the roof, cost great deal of money. But as the
 roof was slated, and as 1t was found necessary
 to pave the hole 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 sum
 mer house. Indeed, it now served as store
 place for the gardeners tools and for rubbish | generally.