street upon which the front door opens. It has an imposing flight
of stone steps guarded by iron rails leading up to it, and on each
side of the door there is a row of three windows, and on the two
upper stories rows of seven windows. Over the door there is a
covering, on which there are grotesquely-formed, carved wooden
faces; and over the centre of each window, let into the brickwork,
is a carved stone. There are also numerous underground windows,
sunk below the earth and protected by iron railings. Altogether the
house is one which cannot fail to attract attention; and in the
brickwork is clearly marked the date, 1701,--not the very best
period for English architecture as regards beauty, but one in which
walls and roofs, ceilings and buttresses, were built more
substantially than they are to-day. This was the only house in
Dillsborough which had a name of its own, and it was called Hoppet
Hall, the Dillsborough chronicles telling that it had been
originally built for and inhabited by the Hoppet family. The only
Hoppet now left in Dillsborough is old Joe Hoppet, the ostler at
the Bush; and the house, as was well known, had belonged to some
member of the Morton family for the last hundred years at least.
The garden and ground it stands upon comprise three acres, all of
which are surrounded by a high brick wall, which is supposed to be
coeval with the house. The best Ribston pippins,--some people say
the only real Ribston pippins,--in all Rufford are to be found
here, and its Burgundy pears and walnuts are almost equally
celebrated. There are rumours also that its roses beat everything
in the way of roses for ten miles round. But in these days very few
strangers are admitted to see the Hoppet Hall roses. The pears and
apples do make their way out, and are distributed either by Mrs.
Masters, the attorney's wife, or Mr. Runciman, the innkeeper. The
present occupier of the house is a certain Mr. Reginald Morton,