My father's face brightened, and he rose hastily, exclaiming, "A welcome guest, Sister Dorothy--the Lord of the Fens--sot the table in the wainscoted parlour." He left the room, and we children watched a tall, stalwart gentleman, well known to us, with a healthy, sunburnt face, alight from his horse. "The Lord of the Fens, indeed!" said Aunt Dorothy in a disappointed tone, as she looked out of the window. "Why, it is only Mr. Oliver Cromwell of Ely, with his coat as slovenly as usual, and his hat without a hat-band. I am as much against gewgaws as any one. If I had my way, not a slashed doublet, or ribboned hose, or feather, or lace, should be seen in the kingdom. But there is reason in all things. Gentlemen should look like gentlemen, and a hat without a hat-band is going too far, in all conscience. The wainscoted parlour, in good sooth! Why, his boots are covered with mud, and I dare warrant it, he will never think of rubbing them on the straw in the hall. And they will get talking, no one knows how long, about that everlasting draining of the Fens. I can't think why they won't let the Fens alone. They did very well for our fathers as they were, and they were better men than we see now-a-days; and if the Almighty made the Fens wet, I suppose he meant them to be wet; and people had better take care how they run against His designs. And they say the king is against it, or against somebody concerned in it, so that there is no knowing what it may lead to. All Scotland in a tumult, and the godly languishing in prison, and our parson putting on some new furbelow and setting up some new fandango every Sabbath; and a godly gentleman like Mr. Oliver Cromwell (for he is that, I don't deny) to have nothing better to do than to try and squeeze a few acres more of dry land out of the Fens!" But Roger whispered to me,-- "Mr. Hampden says Mr. Cromwell would be the greatest man in England if things should come to the worst, and there should be any disturbance with the king." At that moment my father called Roger, and to his delight he was allowed to accompany him and our guest over the farm. And the next entry in my Journal is this,--