“The man is an utter blackguard, you know,”
said Larry. “Last year he threatened to
shoot the foxes in Dillsborough Wood.”
“No!” said Kate, quite horrified.
“I’m afraid he’s a bad sort of fellow
all round,” said the attorney.
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t claim
what he thinks due to him,” said Mrs. Masters.
“I’m told that his lordship offered him
seven-and-six an acre for the whole of the two fields,”
said the gentleman-farmer.
“Goarly declares,” said Mrs. Masters,
“that the pheasants didn’t leave him four
bushels of wheat to the acre.”
Goarly was the man who had proposed himself as a client
to Mr. Masters, and who was desirous of claiming damages
to the amount of forty shillings an acre for injury,
done to the crops on two fields belonging to himself
which lay adjacent to Dillsborough Wood, a covert
belonging to Lord Rufford, about four miles from the
town, in which both pheasants and foxes were preserved
with great care.
“Has Goarly been to you?” asked Twentyman.
Mr. Masters nodded his head. “That’s
just it,” said Mrs. Masters. “I don’t
see why a man isn’t to go to law if he pleases—that
is, if he can afford to pay for it. I have nothing
to say against gentlemen’s sport; but I do say
that they should run the same chance as others.
And I say it’s a shame if they’re to band
themselves together and make the county too hot to
hold any one as doesn’t like to have his things
ridden over, and his crops devoured, and his fences
knocked to Jericho. I think there’s a deal
of selfishness in sport and a deal of tyranny.”
“Oh, Mrs. Masters!” exclaimed Larry.
“Well, I do. And if a poor man,—or
a man whether he’s poor or no,” added
Mrs. Masters, correcting herself, as she thought of
the money which this man ought to have in order that
he might pay for his lawsuit,—“thinks
himself injured, it’s nonsense to tell me that
nobody should take up his case. It’s just
as though the butcher wouldn’t sell a man a
leg of mutton because Lord Rufford had a spite against
him. Who’s Lord Rufford?”
“Everybody knows that I care very little for
his lordship,” said’ Mr. Twentyman.
“Nor I; and I don’t see why Gregory should.
If Goarly isn’t entitled to what he wants he
won’t get it; that’s all. But let
it be tried fairly.”
Hereupon Mr. Masters took up his hat and left the
room, and Mr. Twentyman followed him, not having yet
expressed any positive opinion on the delicate matter
submitted to his judgment. Of course, Goarly
was a brute. Had he not threatened to shoot foxes?
But, then, an attorney must live by lawsuits, and it
seemed to Mr. Twentyman that an attorney should not
stop to inquire whether a new client is a brute or
not.
The Dillsborough Club
