22/75 But I have wandered wofully from my story. A few days before my return to Haddon Hall the great iron key to the gate in the wall east of Bowling Green Hill was missed from the forester's closet where it had hung for a century or more. Bowling Green Hill, as you know, is eastward from Haddon Hall a distance of the fourth part of a mile, and the gate is east of the hill about the same distance or less. A wall is built upon the east line of the Haddon estate, and east of the wall lies a great trackless forest belonging to the house of Devonshire. In olden times there had been a road from Bakewell to Rowsley along the east side of the wall; but before Sir George's seizin the road had been abandoned and the gate was not used. |