If any misanthropic subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George II. had wished to withdraw himself from the bustle of public life and turn recluse in real good earnest, he could scarcely have chosen a district more likely to suit his retiring taste than the country in the vicinity of Saxonford. Scarcely aspiring to the dignity of a village, the place so named was merely a cluster of cottages formed upon the edge of a rough highway leading apparently to nowhere. In ancient times this spot had been of somewhat more importance, for it was here that a religious house of no inconsiderable size had flourished. But those days had long passed away; and in 1745 the only remnant of the monastery which survived the depredations committed by man and the all-effacing hand of Time was a gray skeleton tower, a silent witness to its departed conventual magnificence. Being erected, as was usually the case with fen settlements, upon a rise of comparatively high land, the remains commanded a view of an almost unbroken horizon. Standing at some distance from the hamlet which had arisen round the monastic ruin was a quaint dilapidated structure, known to the scattered natives of those parts as the _Saxonford Arms_. Whatever might have been the causes that induced the architect to build such an inn—for it was by no means a small one—in so lonely a part, must remain a matter of conjecture. A visitor was almost unknown at the old inn. There it stood, weather-beaten and time-worn as the gray old tower which overlooked it, and much more likely to tumble down, if the truth be told. At the time we speak of, the scene appeared unusually calm and beautiful, for the day was drawing to an end, and it was close upon sunset, a period which is seldom seen to so much advantage as in the low-lying districts of the fens. The weather had been unusually hot, and the sinking sun shed a warm glow over a tract of well-browned country, making its rich hues seem richer still. In the glassy water of the river, the vivid sky was reflected as in a mirror, while the tall tops of the sedge-rushes that bordered it were scarcely stirred by a breath of air. A rotten timber bridge, which might have been erected in the time of Hereward, spanned the stream at a short distance from the old inn; crossing this, the road dipped down and led the way between patches of black peat, cultivated land, and unreclaimed watery morass, straight towards the south.