"It's that nasty, beastly, drunken club," said Mrs. Masters to her unfortunate husband on the Wednesday morning. It may perhaps be remembered that the poisoned fox was found on the Saturday, and it may be imagined that Mr. Goarly had risen in importance since that day. On the Saturday Bean with a couple of men employed by Lord Rufford, had searched the wood, and found four or five red herrings poisoned with strychnine. There had been no doubt about the magnitude of the offence. On the Monday a detective policeman, dressed of course in rustic disguise but not the less known to every one in the place, was wandering about between Dillsborough and Dillsborough Wood and making futile inquiries as to the purchase of strychnine,--and also as to the purchase of red herrings. But every one knew, and such leading people as Runciman and Dr. Nupper were not slow to declare, that Dillsborough was the only place in England in which one might be sure that those articles had not been purchased. And on the Tuesday it began to be understood that Goarly had applied to Bearside, the other attorney, in reference to his claim against Lord Rufford's pheasants. He had contemptuously refused the 7s. 6d. an acre offered him, and put his demand at 40s. As to the poisoned fox and the herrings and the strychnine Goarly declared that he didn't care if there were twenty detectives in the place. He stated it to be his opinion that Larry Twentyman had put down the poison. It was all very well, Goarly said, for Larry to be fond of gentlemen and to ride to hounds, and make pretences;--but Larry liked his turkeys as well as anybody else, and Larry had put down the poison. In this matter Goarly overreached himself. No one in Dillsborough could be brought to believe that. Even Harry Stubbings was ready to swear that he should suspect himself as soon. But nothing was clearer than this,--that Goarly was going to make a stand against the hunt and especially against Lord Rufford. He had gone to Bearside and Bearside had taken up the matter in a serious way. Then it became known very quickly that Bearside had already received money, and it was surmised that Goarly had some one at his back. Lord Rufford had lately ejected from a house of his on the other side of the county a discontented litigious retired grocer from Rufford, who had made some money and had set himself up in a pretty little residence with a few acres of land. The man had made himself objectionable and had been dispossessed. The man's name was Scrobby; and hence had come these sorrows. This was the story that had already made itself known in Dillsborough on the Tuesday evening. But up to that time not a tittle of evidence had come to light as to the purchase of the red herrings or the strychnine. All that was known was the fact that had not Tony Tuppett stopped the hounds before they reached the wood, there must have been a terrible mortality. "It's that nasty, beastly, drunken club," said Mrs. Masters to her husband. Of course it was at this time known to the lady that her husband had thrown away Goarly's business and that it had been transferred to Bearside. It was also surmised by her, as it was by the town in general, that Goarly's business would come to considerable dimensions;--just the sort of case as would have been sure to bring popularity if carried through, as Nickem, the senior clerk, would have carried it. And as soon as Scrobby's name was heard by Mrs. Masters, there was no end to the money in the lady's imagination to which this very case might not have amounted.
"The club had nothing to do with it, my dear."
"What time did you come home on Saturday night;--or Sunday morning I mean? Do you mean to tell me you didn't settle it there?"
"There was no nastiness, and no beastliness, and no drunkenness about it. I told you before I went that I wouldn't take it"
"No;--you didn't. How on earth are you to go on if you chuck the children's bread out of their mouths in that way?"
"You won't believe me. Do you ask Twentyman what sort of a man Goarly is." The attorney knew that Larry was in great favour with his wife as being the favoured suitor for Mary's hand, and had thought that this argument would be very strong.
"I don't want Mr. Twentyman to teach me what is proper for my family,--nor yet to teach you your business. Mr. Twentyman has his own way of living. He brought home Kate the other day with hardly a rag of her sister's habit left. She don't go out hunting any more."
"Very well, my dear."
"Indeed for the matter of that I don't see how any of them are to do anything. What'll Lord Rufford do for you?"
"I don't want Lord Rufford to do anything for me." The attorney was beginning to have his spirit stirred within him.
"You don't want anybody to do anything, and yet you will do nothing yourself, just because a set of drinking fellows in a tap-room, which you call a club--" "It isn't a tap-room."
"It's worse, because nobody can see what you're doing. I know how it was. You hadn't the pluck to hold to your own when Runciman told you not" There was a spice of truth in this which made it all the more bitter. "Runciman knows on which side his bread is buttered. He can make his money out of these swearing-tearing fellows. He can send in his bills, and get them paid too. And it's all very well for Larry Twentyman to be hobbing and nobbing with the likes of them Botseys. But for a father of a family like you to be put off his business by what Mr. Runciman says is a shame."
"I shall manage my business as I think fit," said the attorney.
"And when we're all in the poor-house what'll you do then?" said Mrs. Masters,-with her handkerchief out at the spur of the moment. Whenever she roused her husband to a state of bellicose ire by her taunts she could always reduce him again by her tears. Being well aware of this he would bear the taunts as long as he could, knowing that the tears would be still worse. He was so soft-hearted that when she affected to be miserable, he could not maintain the sternness of his demeanour and leave her in her misery. "When everything has gone away from us, what are we to do? My little bit of money has disappeared ever so long." Then she sat herself down in her chair and had a great cry. It was useless for him to remind her that hitherto she had never wanted anything for herself or her children. She was resolved that everything was going to the dogs because Goarly's case had been refused. "And what will all those sporting men do for you?" she repeated. "I hate the very name of a gentleman;--so I do. I wish Goarly had killed all the foxes in the county. Nasty vermin! What good are the likes of them?"
Nickem, the senior clerk, was at first made almost as unhappy as Mrs. Masters by the weak decision to which his employer had come, and had in the first flush of his anger resolved to leave the office. He was sure that the case was one which would just have suited him. He would have got up the evidence as to the fertility of the land, the enormous promise of crop, and the ultimate absolute barrenness, to a marvel. He would have proved clouds of pheasants. And then Goarly's humble position, futile industry, and general poverty might have been contrasted beautifully with Lord Rufford's wealth, idleness, and devotion to sport. Anything above the 7s. 6d. an acre obtained against the lord would have been a triumph, and he thought that if the thing had been well managed, they might probably have got 15s. And then, in such a case, Lord Rufford could hardly have taxed the costs. It was really suicide for an attorney to throw away business so excellent as this. And now it had gone to Bearside whom Nickem remembered as a junior to himself when they were both young hobbledehoys at Norrington,--a dirty, blear-eyed, pimply-faced boy who was suspected of purloining halfpence out of coat-pockets. The thing was very trying to Nat Nickem. But suddenly, before that Wednesday was over, another idea had occurred to him, and he was almost content. He knew Goarly, and he had heard of Scrobby and Scrobby's history in regard to the tenement at Rufford. As he could not get Goarly's case why should he not make something of the case against Goarly? That detective was merely eking out his time and having an idle week among the public-houses. If he could set himself up as an amateur detective he thought that he might perhaps get to the bottom of it all. It is not a bad thing to be concerned on the same side with a lord when the lord is in earnest. Lord Rufford was very angry about the poison in the covert and would probably be ready to pay very handsomely for having the criminal found and punished. The criminal of course was Goarly. Nickem did not doubt that for a moment, and would not have doubted it whichever side he might have taken. Nickem did not suppose that any one for a moment really doubted Goarly's guilt. But to his eyes such certainty amounted to nothing, if evidence of the crime were not forthcoming. He probably felt within his own bosom that the last judgment of all would depend in some way on terrestrial evidence, and was quite sure that it was by such that a man's conscience should be affected. If Goarly had so done the deed as to be beyond the possibility of detection, Nickem could not have brought himself to regard Goarly as a sinner. As it was he had considerable respect for Goarly;--but might it not be possible to drop down upon Scrobby? Bearside with his case against the lord would be nowhere, if Goarly could be got to own that he had been suborned by Scrobby to put down the poison. Or, if in default of this, any close communication could be proved between Goarly and Scrobby,--Scrobby's injury and spirit of revenge being patent,--then too Bearside would not have much of a case. A jury would look at that question of damages with a very different eye if Scrobby's spirit of revenge could be proved at the trial, and also the poisoning, and also machinations between Scrobby and Goarly.
Nickem was a little red-haired man about forty, who wrote a good flourishing hand, could endure an immense amount of work, and drink a large amount of alcohol without being drunk. His nose and face were all over blotches, and he looked to be dissipated and disreputable. But, as he often boasted, no one could say that "black was the white of his eye;"--by which he meant to insinuate that he had not been detected in anything dishonest and that he was never too tipsy to do his work. He was a married man and did not keep his wife and children in absolute comfort; but they lived, and Mr. Nickem in some fashion paid his way. There was another clerk in the office, a very much younger man, named Sundown, and Nickem could not make his proposition to Mr. Masters till Sundown had left the office. Nickem himself had only matured his plans at dinner time and was obliged to be reticent, till at six o'clock Sundown took himself off. Mr. Masters was, at the moment, locking his own desk, when Nickem winked at him to stay. Mr. Masters did stay, and Sundown did at last leave the office. "You couldn't let me leave home for three days?" said Nickem. "There ain't much a doing."
"What do you want it for?"
"That Goarly is a great blackguard, Mr. Masters."
"Very likely. Do you know anything about him?"
Nickem scratched his head and rubbed his chin. "I think I could manage to know something."
"In what way?"
"I don't think I'm quite prepared to say, sir. I shouldn't use your name of course. But they're down upon Lord Rufford, and if you could lend me a trifle of 30s., sir, I think I could get to the bottom of it. His lordship would be awful obliged to any one who could hit it off"
Mr. Masters did give his clerk leave for three days, and did advance him the required money. And when he suggested in a whisper that perhaps the circumstance need not be mentioned to Mrs. Masters, Nickem winked again and put his fore-finger to the side of his big carbuncled nose.
That evening Larry Twentyman came in, but was not received with any great favour by Mrs. Masters. There was growing up at this moment in Dillsborough the bitterness of real warfare between the friends and enemies of sport in general, and Mrs. Masters was ranking herself thereby among the enemies. Larry was of course one of the friends. But unhappily there was a slight difference of sentiment even in Larry's own house, and on this very morning old Mrs. Twentyman had expressed to Mrs. Masters a feeling of wrong which had gradually risen from the annual demolition of her pet broods of turkeys. She declared that for the last three years every turkey poult had gone, and that at last she was beginning to feel it. "It's over a hundred of 'em they've had, and it is wearing," said the old woman. Larry had twenty times begged her to give up the rearing turkeys, but her heart had been too high for that. "I don't know why Lord Rufford's foxes are to be thought of always, and nobody is to think about your poor mother's poultry," said Mrs. Masters, lugging the subject in neck and heels. "Has she been talking to you, Mrs. Masters, about her turkeys?"
"Your mother may speak to me I suppose if she likes it, without offence to Lord Rufford."
"Lord Rufford has got nothing to do with it"
"The wood belongs to him," said Mrs. Masters.
"Foxes are much better than turkeys anyway," said Kate Masters. "If you don't hold your tongue, miss, you'll be sent to bed. The wood belongs to his lordship, and the foxes are a nuisance."
"He keeps the foxes for the county, and where would the county be without them?" began Larry. "What is it brings money into such a place as this?" "To Runciman's stables and Harry Stubbings and the like of them. What money does it bring in to steady honest people?"
"Look at all the grooms," said Larry.
"The impudentest set of young vipers about the place," said the lady. "Look at Grice's business." Grice was the saddler.
"Grice indeed! What's Grice?"
"And the price of horses?"
"Yes;--making everything dear that ought to be cheap. I don't see and I never shall see and I never will see any good in extravagant idleness. As for Kate she shall never go out hunting again. She has torn Mary's habit to pieces. And shooting is worse. Why is a man to have a flock of voracious cormorants come down upon his corn fields? I'm The American Senator, all in favour of Goarly, and so, I tell you, Mr. Twentyman." After this poor Larry went away, finding that he had no opportunity for saying a word to Mary Masters.
On that same Wednesday Reginald Morton had called at the attorney's house, had asked for Miss Masters, and had found her alone. Mrs. Masters at the time had been out, picking up intelligence about the great case, and the two younger girls had been at school. Reginald, as he walked home from Bragton all alone on that occasion when Larry had returned with Mary, was quite sure that he would never willingly go into Mary's presence again. Why should he disturb his mind about such a girl,--one who could rush into the arms of such a man as Larry Twentyman? Or, indeed, why disturb his mind about any girl? That was not the manner of life which he planned for himself. After that he shut himself up for a few days and was not much seen by any of the Dillsborough folk. But on this Wednesday he received a letter, and,--as he told himself, merely in consequence of that letter,--he called at the attorney's house and asked for Miss Masters. He was shown up into the beautiful drawing-room, and in a few minutes Mary came to him. "I have brought you a letter from my aunt," he said.
"From Lady Ushant? I am so glad."
"She was writing to me and she put this under cover. I know what it contains. She wants you to go to her at Cheltenham for a month."
"Oh, Mr. Morton!"
"Would you like to go?"
"How should I not like to go? Lady Ushant is my dearest, dearest friend. It is so very good of her to think of me."
"She talks of the first week in December and wants you to be there for Christmas."
"I don't at all know that I can go, Mr. Morton"
"Why not go?"
"I'm afraid mamma will not spare me." There were many reasons. She could hardly go on such a visit without some renewal of her scanty wardrobe, which perhaps the family funds would not permit. And, as she knew very well, Mrs. Masters was not at all favourable to Lady Ushant. If the old lady had altogether kept Mary it might have been very well; but she had not done so and Mrs. Masters had more than once said that that kind of thing must be all over;-meaning that Mary was to drop her intimacy with high-born people that were of no real use. And then there was Mr. Twentyman and his suit. Mary had for some time felt that her step-mother intended her to understand that her only escape from home would be by becoming Mrs. Twentyman. "I don't think it will be possible, Mr. Morton."
"My aunt will be very sorry."
"Oh,--how sorry shall I be! It is like having another little bit of heaven before me." Then he said what he certainly should not have said. "I thought, Miss Masters, that your heaven was all here."
"What do you mean by that, Mr. Morton?" she asked blushing up to her hair. Of course she knew what he meant, and of course she was angry with him. Ever since that walk her mind had been troubled by ideas as to what he would think about her, and now he was telling her what he thought.
"I fancied that you were happy here without going to see an old woman who after all has not much amusement to offer to you."
"I don't want any amusement."
"At any rate you will answer Lady Ushant?"
"Of course I shall answer her."
"Perhaps you can let me know. She wishes me to take you to Cheltenham. I shall go for a couple of days, but I shall not stay longer. If you are going perhaps you would allow me to travel with you."
"Of course it would be very kind; but I don't suppose that I shall go. I am sure Lady Ushant won't believe that I am kept away from her by any pleasure of my own here. I can explain it all to her and she will understand me." She hardly meant to reproach him. She did not mean to assume an intimacy sufficient for reproach. But he felt that she had reproached him. "I love Lady Ushant so dearly that I would go anywhere to see her if I could."
"Then I think it could be managed. Your father----"
"Papa does not attend much to us girls. It is mamma that manages all that. At any rate, I will write to Lady Ushant, and will ask papa to let you know" Then it seemed as though there were nothing else for him but to go;--and yet he wanted to say some other word. If he had been cruel in throwing Mr. Twentyman in her teeth, surely he ought to apologize. "I did not mean to say anything to offend you."
"You have not offended me at all, Mr. Morton."
"If I did think that,--that----"
"It does not signify in the least. I only want Lady Ushant to understand that if I could possibly go to her I would rather do that than anything else in the world. Because Lady Ushant is kind to me I needn't expect other people to be so." Reginald Morton was of course the "other people."
Then he paused a moment. "I did so long," he said, "to walk round the old place with you the other day before these people came there, and I was so disappointed when you would not come with me."
"I was coming."
"But you went back with--that other man"
"Of course I did when you showed so plainly that you didn't want him to join you. What was I to do? I couldn't send him away. Mr. Twentyman is a very intimate friend of ours, and very kind to Dolly and Kate."
"I wished so much to talk to you about the old days."
"And I wish to go for your aunt, Mr. Morton; but we can't all of us have what we wish. Of course I saw that you were very angry, but I couldn't help that. Perhaps it was wrong in Mr. Twentyman to offer to walk with you."
"I didn't say so at all."
"You looked it at any rate, Mr. Morton. And as Mr. Twentyman is a friend of ours-"
"You were angry with me."
"I don't say that. But as you were too grand for our friend of course you were too grand for us."
"That is a very unkind way of putting it. I don't think I am grand. A man may wish to have a little conversation with a very old friend without being interrupted, and yet not be grand. I dare say Mr. Twentyman is just as good as I am." "You don't think that, Mr. Morton"
"I believe him to be a great deal better, for he earns his bread, and takes care of his mother, and as far as I know does his duty thoroughly."
"I know the difference, Mr. Morton, and of course I know how you feel it. I don't suppose that Mr. Twentyman is a fit companion for any of the Mortons, but for all that he may be a fit companion for me,--and my sisters." Surely she must have said this with the express object of declaring to him that in spite of the advantages of her education she chose to put herself in the ranks of the Twentymans, Runcimans and such like. He had come there ardently wishing that she might be allowed to go to his aunt, and resolved that he would take her himself if it were possible. But now he almost thought that she had better not go. If she had made her election, she must be allowed to abide by it. If she meant to marry Mr. Twentyman what good could she get by associating with his aunt or with him? And had she not as good as told him that she meant to marry Mr. Twentyman? She had at any rate very plainly declared that she regarded Mr. Twentyman as her equal in rank. Then he took his leave without any further explanation. Even if she did go to Cheltenham he would not take her. After that he walked straight out to Bragton. He was of course altogether unconscious what grand things his cousin John had intended to do by him, had not the Honourable old lady interfered; but he had made up his mind that duty required him to call at the house. So he walked by the path across the bridge and when he came out on the gravel road near the front door he found a gentleman smoking a cigar and looking around him. It was Mr. Gotobed who had just returned from a visit which he had made, the circumstances of which must be narrated in the next chapter. The Senator lifted his hat and remarked that it was a very fine afternoon. Reginald lifted his hat and assented. "Mr. Morton, Sir, I think is out with the ladies, taking a drive."
"I will leave a card then."
"The old lady is at home, sir, if you wish to see her," continued the Senator following Reginald up to the door.
"Oh, Mr. Reginald, is that you?" said old Mrs. Hopkins taking the card. "They are all out,--except herself." As he certainly did not wish to see "herself," he greeted the old woman and left his card.
"You live in these parts, sir?" asked the Senator.
"In the town yonder."
"Because Mr. Morton's housekeeper seems to know you."
"She knows me very well as I was brought up in this house. Good morning to you."
"Good afternoon to you, sir. Perhaps you can tell me who lives in that country residence,--what you call a farm-house,--on the other side of the road." Reginald said that he presumed the gentleman was alluding to Mr. Twentyman's house. "Ah, yes,--I dare say. That was the name I heard up there. You are not Mr. Twentyman, sir?"
"My name is Morton"
"Morton is it;--perhaps my friend's;--ah--ah,--yes." He didn't like to say uncle because Reginald didn't look old enough, and he knew he ought not to say brother, because the elder brother in England would certainly have had the property.
"I am Mr. John Morton's cousin."
"Oh;--Mr. Morton's cousin. I asked whether you were the owner of that farmhouse because I intruded just now by passing through the yards, and I would have apologized. Good afternoon to you, sir." Then Reginald having thus done his duty returned home.
Mary Masters when she was alone was again very angry with herself. She knew thoroughly how perverse she had been when she declared that Larry Twentyman was a fit companion for herself, and that she had said it on purpose to punish the man who was talking to her. Not a day passed, or hardly an hour of a day, in which she did not tell herself that the education she had received and the early associations of her life had made her unfit for the marriage which her friends were urging upon her. It was the one great sorrow of her life. She even repented of the good things of her early days because they had given her a distaste for what might have otherwise been happiness and good fortune. There had been moments in which she had told herself that she ought to marry Larry Twentyman and adapt herself to the surroundings of her life. Since she had seen Reginald Morton frequently, she had been less prone to tell herself so than before; and yet to this very man she had declared her fitness for Larry's companionship!
Mr. Gotobed, when the persecutions of Goarly were described to him at the scene of the dead fox, had expressed considerable admiration for the man's character as portrayed by what he then heard. The man,--a poor man too and despised in the land, was standing up for his rights, all alone, against the aristocracy and plutocracy of the county. He had killed the demon whom the aristocracy and plutocracy worshipped, and had appeared there in arms ready to defend his own territory,--one against so many, and so poor a man against men so rich! The Senator had at once said that he would call upon Mr. Goarly, and the Senator was a man who always carried out his purposes. Afterwards, from John Morton, and from others who knew the country better than Morton, he learned further particulars. On the Monday and Tuesday he fathomed,--or nearly fathomed,--that matter of the 7s. 6d. an acre. He learned at any rate that the owner of the wood admitted a damage done by him to the corn and had then, himself, assessed the damage without consultation with the injured party; and he was informed also that Goarly was going to law with the lord for a fuller compensation. He liked Goarly for killing the fox, and he liked him more for going to law with Lord Rufford.
He declared openly at Bragton his sympathy with the man and his intention of expressing it. Morton was annoyed and endeavoured to persuade him to leave the man alone; but in vain. No doubt had he expressed himself decisively and told his friend that he should be annoyed by a guest from his house taking part in such a matter, the Senator would have abstained and would merely have made one more note as to English peculiarities and English ideas of justice; but Morton could not bring himself to do this. "The feeling of the country will be altogether against you," he had said, hoping to deter the Senator. The Senator had replied that though the feeling of that little bit of the country might be against him he did not believe that such would be the case with the feeling of England generally. The ladies had all become a little afraid of Mr. Gotobed and hardly dared to express an opinion. Lady Augustus did say that she supposed that Goarly was a low vulgar fellow, which of course strengthened the Senator in his purpose. The Senator on Wednesday would not wait for lunch but started a little before one with a crust of bread in his pocket to find his way to Goarly's house. There was no difficulty in this as he could see the wood as soon as he had got upon the high road. He found Twentyman's gate and followed directly the route which the hunting party had taken, till he came to the spot on which the crowd had been assembled. Close to this there was a hand-gate leading into Dillsborough wood, and standing in the gateway was a man. The Senator thought that this might not improbably be Goarly himself, and asked the question, "Might your name be Mr. Goarly, sir?"
"Me Goarly!" said the man in infinite disgust. "I ain't nothing of the kind,--and you knows it" That the man should have been annoyed at being taken for Goarly, that man being Bean the gamekeeper who would willingly have hung Goarly if he could, and would have thought it quite proper that a law should be now passed for hanging him at once, was natural enough. But why he should have told the Senator that the Senator knew he was not Goarly it might be difficult to explain. He probably at once regarded the Senator as an enemy, as a man on the other side, and therefore as a cunning knave who would be sure to come creeping about on false pretences. Bean, who had already heard of Bearside and had heard of Scrobby in connection with this matter, looked at the Senator very hard. He knew Bearside. The man certainly was not the attorney, and from what he had heard of Scrobby be didn't think he was Scrobby. The man was not like what in his imagination Scrobby would be. He did not know what to make of Mr. Gotobed,--who was a person of an imposing appearance, tall and thin, with a long nose and look of great acuteness, dressed in black from head to foot, but yet not looking quite like an English gentleman. He was a man to whom Bean in an ordinary way would have been civil,--civil in a cold guarded way; but how was he to be civil to anybody who addressed him as Goarly?
"I did not know it," said the Senator. "As Goarly lives near here I thought you might be Goarly. When I saw Goarly he had a gun, and you have a gun. Can you tell me where Goarly lives?"
"Tother side of the wood," said Bean pointing back with his thumb. "He never had a gun like this in his hand in all his born days."
"I dare say not, my friend. I can go through the wood I guess;" for Bean had pointed exactly over the gateway.
"I guess you can't then," said Bean. The man who, like other gamekeepers, lived much in the company of gentlemen, was ordinarily a civil courteous fellow, who knew how to smile and make things pleasant. But at this moment he was very much put out. His covert had been found full of red herrings and strychnine, and his fox had been poisoned. He had lost his guinea on the day of the hunt, the guinea which would have been his perquisite had they found a live fox in his wood. And all this was being done by such a fellow as Goarly! And now this abandoned wretch was bringing an action against his Lordship and was leagued with such men as Scrobby and Bearside! It was a dreadful state of things! How was it likely that he should give a passage through the wood to anybody coming after Goarly? "You're on Mr. Twentyman's land now, as I dare say you know." "I don't know anything about it"