ancient times formed the approach to the gates of Honham Castle, the
seat of the ancient and honourable family of de la Molle (sometimes
written "Delamol" in history and old writings). Honham Castle was now
nothing but a ruin, with a manor house built out of the wreck on one
side of its square, and the broad way that led to it from the high
road which ran from Boisingham,[*] the local country town, was a drift
or grass lane.

[*] Said to have been so named after the Boissey family, whose heiress
a de la Molle married in the fourteenth century. As, however, the
town of Boisingham is mentioned by one of the old chroniclers,
this does not seem very probable. No doubt the family took their
name from the town or hamlet, not the town from the family.

Colonel Quaritch followed this drift till he came to the high road,
and then turned. A few minutes' walk brought him to a drive opening
out of the main road on the left as he faced towards Boisingham. This
drive, which was some three hundred yards long, led up a rather sharp
slope to his own place, Honham Cottage, or Molehill, as the villagers
called it, a title calculated to give a keen impression of a neat
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