Merry enough it was, and gladsome, this spring day; for be sure the really ill did not brave the long morning ride to test the virtue of the waters of Sadler's Wells.

It was for the most part the young, the lively, the full-blooded, perhaps the wearied, but none the less the vital and stirring natures which met in the decreed assemblage.
Back of Sadler's little court the country came creeping close up to the town.

There were fields not so far away on these long highways.
Wandering and rambling roads ran off to the westward and to the north, leading toward the straight old Roman road which once upon a time ran down to London town.

Ill-kept enough were some of the lanes, with their hedges and shrubs overhanging the highways, if such the paths could be called which came braiding down toward the south.

One needed not to go far outward beyond Sadler's Wells of a night-time to find adventure, or to lose a purse.
It was on one of these less crowded highways that there was this morning enacted a curious little drama.