The sun was slowly sinking behind the tree-clad Hampshire Downs. Already the long shadows of Rake Hill lay athwart the misty coombe, and the glimmer of the innumerable forges in the valley beneath began to hold its own against the rapidly fading daylight. The cold east wind, for it was but the beginning of March, in the year of grace 1660, whistled through the clump of gaunt pine trees that marked the summit of the hill, and, despite the fact that each of us wore a thick doublet, the chilly blast cut us like a knife.