, so I should think!' he cried, laughing loudly. 'If you doan't know
the way to Badminton you doan't know much! But I'll go with you, danged
if I doan't, and I'll show you your road, and run my chance o' finding
the Duke there. What be your name?'

'Micah Clarke is my name.'

'And Vairmer Brown is mine--John Brown by the register, but better
knowed as the Vairmer. Tak' this turn to the right off the high-road.
Now we can trot our beasts and not be smothered in other folk's dust.
And what be you going to Beaufort for?'

'On private matters which will not brook discussion,' I answered.

'Lor', now! Affairs o' State belike,' said he, with a whistle. 'Well, a
still tongue saves many a neck. I'm a cautious man myself, and these be
times when I wouldna whisper some o' my thoughts--no, not into the ears
o' my old brown mare here--for fear I'd see her some day standing over
against me in the witness-box.'

'They seem very busy over there,' I remarked, for we were now in full
sight of the walls of Bristol, where gangs of men were working hard with
pick and shovel improving the defences.

'Aye, they be busy sure enough, makin' ready in case the rebels come
this road. Cromwell and his tawnies found it a rasper in my vather's
time, and Monmouth is like to do the same.'

'It hath a strong garrison, too,' said I, bethinking me of Saxon's
advice at Salisbury. 'I see two or three regiments out yonder on the
bare open space.'

'They have four thousand foot and a thousand horse,' the farmer
answered. 'But the foot are only train-bands, and there's no trusting
them after Axminster. They say up here that the rebels run to nigh
twenty thousand, and that they give no quarter. Well, if we must have
civil war, I hope it may be hot and sudden, not spun out for a dozen
years like the last one. If our throats are to be cut, let it be with a
shairp knife, and not with a blunt hedge shears.'

'What say you to a stoup of cider?' I asked, for we were passing an
ivy-clad inn, with 'The Beaufort Arms' printed upon the sign.

'With all my heart, lad,' my companion answered. 'Ho, there! two pints
of the old hard-brewed! That will serve to wash the dust down. The real
Beaufort Arms is up yonder at Badminton, for at the buttery hatch one
may call for what one will in reason and never put hand to pocket.'

'You speak of the house as though you knew it well,' said I.

'And who should know it better?' asked the sturdy farmer, wiping his
lips, as