The story of how the people's petition was disregarded, and how the city of Norwich was taken and retaken with much bloodshed, does not belong here. The rebellion was suppressed, and Robert and William Kett hanged, but the memory of these things still lingers in the rural districts, and everyone in the neighbourhood of Ryston knows "Ked's Oak," as they name it. There were Pratts of Ryston Hall then, as now, and old legends still tell how Robert Kett seized some of the Squire's sheep to feed his followers, leaving this rhymed note in acknowledgment-- "Mr. Prat, your shepe are verry fat, And wee thank you for that. Wee have left you the skinnes To buy your ladye pinnes And you may thank us for that." Some of the insurgents were hanged from this very tree, as the rhyme tells us-- "Surely the tree that nine men did twist on Must be the old oak now at Ryston." The present Squire has recorded these things on a stone placed against the trunk of this venerable relic. [Illustration: DENVER HALL.] Denver, which presently succeeds Fordham and Ryston, is remarkable for many things. Firstly, for that beautiful old Tudor mansion, Denver Hall, by the wayside, on entering the village; secondly, for the semicircular sweep of the high road around the church; and, thirdly, for the great "Denver Sluice" on the river Ouse, a mile away. This is the massive lock that at high tide shuts out the tidal waters from flooding the reclaimed Fens, and at the ebb is opened to let out the accumulated waters of the Ouse and the innumerable drains of the Great Level. The failure of Denver Sluice would spell disaster and ruin to many, and it has for that reason been specially protected by troops on several occasions when Irish political agitators have entered upon "physical force" campaigns, and have been credited with a desire to blow up this main protection of two thousand square miles of land slowly and painfully won back from bog and waste. [Illustration: THE CROWN, DOWNHAM MARKET.] [Illustration: THE CASTLE, DOWNHAM MARKET.] Denver gives its name to a town in America--Denver, Colorado--and has had several distinguished natives; but, despite all these many and varied attributes of greatness, it is a very small and very modest place, quite overshadowed by the little town of Downham Market, a mile onward. Downham, as Camden informs us, obtains its name from "Dun" and "ham," signifying the home on the hill; and the ancient parish church, which may be taken as standing on the site of the original settlement, does indeed rise from a knoll that, although of no intrinsic height, commands a vast and impressive view over illimitable miles of marshland. It is not a church of great interest, nor does the little town offer many attractions, although by no means unpleasing.