He still retained his flowing lovelocks, while the lower part of his weather-worn face was adorned by a greyish beard of Van Dyck cut, which failed to hide a portion of a long, whitish scar that extended from his left eyebrow to his cheek bone--the legacy of a pike-thrust in the sanguinary encounter of Cropredy Bridge. He was dressed in a dark-blue suit, relieved by a deep collar of Mechlin lace, while, on account of the severity of the weather, he was further attired in a long cloak that barely concealed the end of a short hanger--a necessary weapon in these troublous times. I also knew that he carried two long dags, or Scottish pistols, yet of these there was no outward sign. As we neared the foot of the hill, instead of turning to the right towards our home, my father broke the silence by saying: "I will call in at the ’Flying Bull’. Possibly the chapman from Godalming is there. If so, I can replenish my stock of gun flints." As we entered the doorway of the "Flying Bull"--an old hostelry that has sheltered all sorts and conditions of men, from kings and queens even to the arch-traitor Old Noll himself, and the sign of which, painted by a limner who had learned his art in the time of the last crusade, had swung in the breeze for nigh on four hundred years--we were greeted with a chorus of welcome from the score or so of persons assembled in the large stone-flagged common room. "How goes the price of malt and barley at Petersfield?" questioned one man in a voice that was like to the bellowing of a bull. "Man," retorted another, "doth thy reasoning not rise above the price of petty huckstering, Obadiah Blow-the-trumpet-in-Zion? Heed him not, good Master Wentworth. Hast news of honest George Monk and his army?" "None, though rumour hath it that the fleet at Portsmouth hath sided with Monk, and that John Tippets, the mayor, hath called out the train bands and manned the ordnance on the Platform and the Square Tower. Moreover, a trusty messenger hath reached Sir Giles Seaward with orders to raise the countryside and to assemble in Petersfield marketplace to-morrow at noon. God forfend that this land be not again drenched in blood!" "Ay," rejoined another, "but, as man to man, Master Wentworth, what think ye? How blows the wind in London?" he added darkly. "My friend, mark ye well, the wind blows straight from the Low Country."