‘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 we resumed our journey. ‘Why, it seems but yesterday that I played hide-and-seek wi’ my brothers in the old Boteler Castle, that stood where the new house o’ Badminton, or Acton Turville, as some calls it, now stands. The Duke hath built it but a few years, and, indeed, his Dukedom itself is scarce older. There are some who think that he would have done better to stick by the old name that his forebears bore.’ ‘What manner of man is the Duke?’ I asked. ‘Hot and hasty, like all of his blood. Yet when he hath time to think, and hath cooled down, he is just in the main. Your horse hath been in the water this morning, vriend.’ ‘Yes,’ said I shortly, ‘he hath had a bath.’