When Sir John learned of the trick that had been played on him he was furious, and vowed that he would never see his daughter again. But Queen Elizabeth took an interest in the affair, and finally brought about a reconciliation, and the arms of the two families were placed in the drawing-room to show that peace was restored between Sir John and the young people. BY FEN AND BROAD. From hills and slopes, dales and uplands, we will take our departure and look at the flattest land of England, the wide, level stretches of country around the Wash, the Fens. A fen is a marsh, and once these immense stretches of flat land were marshes pure and simple. There is plenty of water about them now, but it is penned up by dikes and embankments, and run off by drains as big as rivers. It is often said that those who care for Dutch landscape have no need to leave our own country to enjoy it, for the Fenland is Holland in miniature. There may be seen the same long flat stretches of country, cut by long, straight canals bordered by willow and alder; the same kind of dikes making the same fight against the encroaching sea, the windmills pumping water into drains and out of some pool which is being reclaimed; the green fields deep in grass, and the dark peat-cuttings whence the peasantry obtain their fuel. It is nearly 300 years since a beginning was made of draining the Fens. Before that time the whole country was one great marsh, through which slow-moving streams crept to the sea. Very often vast tracts were completely under water. Perhaps there was heavy rain and a flood ran down the rivers; it might be met by a high tide sweeping far up the low, flat river-beds. The flood and the tide met, and the water rose high above the shallow banks, and converted the land into a huge morass. It is significant that the earliest drainers of the Fens were Dutchmen, who directed Dutch labourers. These men knew what had been done in their native Holland in the way of reclaiming land, and they saw that good land could be made in the Fens if the water could only be kept in its proper place. So they began to raise embankments, to scour out the channels of rivers, to build sluices, and to pump the water out of standing pools. The drainers had to make a great struggle with the forces of Nature; they had almost a severer and sterner fight still with the Fen-folk. The latter had been born and bred amid their wild watery wilderness, and loved it. Their cottages were raised here and there wherever a patch of dry earth showed itself above the bog, and they traversed the Fens far and wide in their boats or on foot. When afoot, each man carried his long leaping-pole over his shoulder. With its aid he would skim like a bird over a stream or pool, and so make his way where another man would have found his path hopelessly blocked.