As for the Priory, whence the mercenary Father Basil of the legend came, that vanished long ago in disestablishment and ruin, only a few portions, including the ancient gatehouse, being included in the modern buildings of Dover College. The "Priory" station of the Chatham and Dover line takes its name from this ancient religious house. Some records of the Prior and his Benedictine monks who were housed here still remain. It would seem that they were, at the last, when the Priory was dissolved, a very bad lot indeed, and quite merited disestablishment, if nothing more. They preferred amorous intrigues to mortifying the flesh with the scourgings, cold water, and stale crusts represented by the orthodox as the staple fare and daily discipline of such. They were veritable Friar Tucks, these jolly monks of Dover, so far as provand was concerned, while their morals left much to be desired, as may be judged when we read the testimony of the Royal commissioners who were sent hither to report upon their conduct. Those emissaries gave no notice of their advent; in fact, the first intimation the Prior had of their quite unceremonious visit was when the noise of their bursting open the door of his bedroom (not, if you please, his "cell") woke both him and the lady who shared his bed. The commissioners turned her out, in that lay brother's costume in which she had gained admittance to the monastery. Such historical evidence refutes the charges of flippant injustice towards the olden Roman Catholic times of which Ingoldsby has often been accused. [Illustration: THE "LONE TREE."] In quest of the "Marston Hall" of "The Leech of Folkestone," and of traces of Master Marsh we must leave Dover, and, climbing the steep and winding Castle Hill, come, under the frowning keep and warder towers of that great fortress, to the high, bare, chalky table-land that stretches from this point to Deal and Sandwich. It is an open, unfenced road at the beginning, and so shadeless that a very striking elm solitary by the wayside is known far and wide as the "Lone Tree." This isolated object has a story, told with a thorough belief in its truth. It seems that, a great many years ago, a soldier of the Castle garrison murdered a comrade on this spot by felling him with a stick he carried. No one saw the deed done, and he was so convinced that the crime would never be traced that he thrust the elm-stick in the ground, declaring that he was safe so long as it did not take root. His regiment was shortly afterwards ordered abroad, and it was not until many years had passed that he was again at Dover. Once there, a morbid curiosity took him to the scene of his crime, where, horror-stricken, he found that stick a flourishing tree. He confessed, and was duly executed. It is a legend exactly after Ingoldsby's own heart, but perhaps he never heard of it, for it does not appear in his writings.