I remember that evening well; its stirring incidents are graven on my memory as if they had happened but yesterday, though nigh on twoscore and ten winters and summers have passed over my head since the eventful year of which I write.
My father and I were returning homewards from the great fair at Petersfield. For an old man, he being well over sixty years of age, my father was the marvel of our village. Tall but sparely built, his frame betokened a strength of body that harmonized with the determination of character that made itself known by the glance of his steel-coloured eyes. Report says that when he came to Rake to settle down, some twelve or thirteen years back--I being but an infant in arms,--he did gain a lasting reputation by outmatching one Caleb James, a notorious bully, at his own game, breaking his pate with his own staff on the roadside hard by Milland Church.
Moreover, as proof of his hardiness, is there not the testimony of the worthy Master Hugh Salesbury, the chirurgeon of Lyss--the same whose son fell in Torrington's action off Beachy Head,--to the effect that though practice was slack around Lyss, yet he perforce would have to give up if none were better patients than honest Owen Wentworth.
Despite the fact that he was on the losing side, my father was not backward in declaring his attachment to His Gracious Majesty King Charles II; and although our neighbours, even the Roundheads, were favourably disposed to him, making allowance for his fiery temper, yet with strangers who passed along the great highway betwixt London Town and Portsmouth, honest Owen's outspoken declarations oft led to wordy strife, and on occasions ended in blows.
In defiance of the Puritan regulations against anything tending towards the lost cause, my father, though ruined by confiscations and sequestration, endeavoured to maintain the appearance of a careless and social demeanour, ever cherishing a hope that each day seemed nearer fulfilment.
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.