At the further end of the hall yawned a great fireplace of white marble, with the lions and lilies of the Somerset arms carved in oak above it, and a long gilt scroll bearing the family motto, "Mutare vel timere sperno." The massive tables at which we sat were loaded with silver chargers and candelabra, and bright with the rich plate for which Badminton was famous. I could not but think that, if Saxon could clap eyes upon it, he would not be long in urging that the war be carried on in this direction.
After dinner we were all shown into a small ante-chamber, set round with velvet settees, where we were to wait till the Duke was ready to see us. In the centre of this room there stood several cases, glass-topped and lined with silk, wherein were little steel and iron rods, with brass tubes and divers other things, very bright and ingenious, though I could not devise for what end they had been put together. A gentleman-in- waiting came round with paper and ink-horn, making notes of our names and of our business. Him I asked whether it might not be possible for me to have an entirely private audience.
'His Grace never sees in private,' he replied. 'He has ever his chosen councillors and officers in attendance.'
'But the business is one which is only fit for his own ear,' I urged.
'His Grace holds that there is no business fit only for his own ear,' said the gentleman. 'You must arrange matters as best you can when you are shown in to him. I will promise, however, that your request be carried to him, though I warn you that it cannot be granted.'
I thanked him for his good offices, and turned away with the farmer to look at the strange little engines within the cases.
'What is it?' I asked. 'I have never seen aught that was like it.'
'It is the work of the mad Marquis of Worcester,' quoth he. 'He was the Duke's grandfather. He was ever making and devising such toys, but they were never of any service to himself or to others. Now, look ye here! This wi' the wheels were called the water-engine, and it was his crazy thought that, by heating the water in that ere kettle, ye might make the wheels go round, and thereby travel along iron bars quicker nor a horse could run. 'Oons! I'd match my old brown mare against all such contrivances to the end o' time. But to our places, for the Duke is coming.'
We had scarce taken our seats with the other suitors, when the folding-doors were flung open, and a stout, thick, short man of fifty, or thereabouts, came bustling into the room, and strode down it between two lines of bowing clients. He had large projecting blue eyes, with great pouches of skin beneath them, and a yellow, sallow visage. At his heels walked a dozen officers and men of rank, with flowing wigs and clanking swords. They had hardly passed through the opposite door into the Duke's own room, when the gentleman with the list called out a name, and the guests began one after the other to file into the great man's presence.
'Methinks his Grace is in no very gentle temper,' quoth Farmer Brown. 'Did you not mark how he gnawed his nether lip as he passed?'
'He seemed a quiet gentleman enough,' I answered. 'It would try Job himself to see all these folk of an afternoon.'
'Hark at that!' he whispered, raising his finger. As he spoke the sound of the Duke's voice in a storm of wrath was heard from the inner chamber, and a little sharp-faced man came out and flew through the ante-chamber as though fright had turned his head.
'He is an armourer of Bristol,' whispered one of my neighbours. 'It is likely that the Duke cannot come to terms with him over a contract.'
'Nay,' said another. 'He supplied Sir Marmaduke Hyson's troop with sabres, and it is said that the blades will bend as though they were lead. Once used they can never he fitted back into the scabbard again.'
'The tall man who goes in now is an inventor,' quoth the first. 'He hath the secret of some very grievous fire, such as hath been used by the Greeks against the Turks in the Levant, which he desires to sell for the better fortifying of Bristol.'
The Greek fire seemed to be in no great request with the Duke, for the inventor came out presently with his face as red as though it had been touched by his own compound.