Hall. The Somersetshire peasant answers at the top of _his_ voice:

"Vourteen mile. Gi' oi a drap o' zyder."

I translate (for my wife's benefit) from the Somersetshire language into
the English language. We are fourteen miles from Farleigh Hall; and our
friend in the field desires to be rewarded, for giving us that
information, with a drop of cider. There is the peasant, painted by
himself! Quite a bit of character, my dear! Quite a bit of character!

Mrs. Fairbank doesn't view the study of agricultural human nature with my
relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her a moment's repose; she is
beginning to lose her temper.

"We can't go fourteen miles in this way," she says. "Where is the nearest
inn? Ask that brute in the field!"

I take a shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the sun. The shilling
exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling draws the peasant slowly toward
me from the middle of the field. I inform him that we want to put up the
horses and to hire a carriage to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Where can
we do that? The peasant answers (with his eye on the shilling):

"At Oonderbridge, to be zure." (At Underbridge, to be sure.)

"Is it far to Underbridge?"

The peasant repeats, "Var to Oonderbridge?"--and laughs at the question.
"Hoo-hoo-hoo!" (Underbridge is evidently close by--if we could only find
it.) "Will you show us the way, my man?" "Will you gi' oi a drap of
zyder?" I courteously bend my head, and point to the shilling. The
agricultural intelligence exerts itself. The peasant joins our melancholy
procession. My wife is a fine woman, but he never once looks at my
wife--and, more extraordinary still, he never even looks at the horses.
His eyes are with his mind--and his mind is on the shilling.

We reach the top of the hill--and, behold on the other side, nestling in
a valley, the shrine of our pilgrimage, the town of Underbridge! Here our
guide claims his shilling, and leaves us to find out the inn for
ourselves. I am constitutionally a polite man. I say "Good morning" at
parting. The guide looks at me with the shilling between his teeth to make
sure that it is a good one. "Marnin!" he says savagely--and turns his back
on us, as if we had offended him. A curious product, this, of the growth
of civilization. If I didn't see a church spire at Underbridge, I might
suppose that we had lost ourselves on a savage island.

II

Arriving at the town, we had no difficulty in finding the inn.