The next day the placards on the Rockville estate were changed for others Bearing “STOPPED BY ORDER OF SESSIONS!” and alongside of them were huge carefully painted boards, denouncing on all trespassers prosecutions according to law.  The same evening came a prodigious invasion of Stockingtonians—­tore all the boards and placards down, and carried them on their shoulders to Great Stockington, singing as they went, “See, the Conquering Heroes come!” They set them up in the center of Stockington market-place, and burnt them, along with an effigy of Sir Roger Rockville.

That was grist at once to the mill of the able lawyer Daredeville.  He looked on, and rubbed his hands.  Warrants were speedily issued by the baronets of Bullockshed and Tenterhook, for the apprehension of the individuals who had been seen carrying off the notice-boards, for larceny, and against a number of others for trespass.  There was plenty of work for Daredeville and his brethren of the robe; but it all ended, after the flying about of sundry mandamuses and assize trials, in Sir Roger finding that though Rockville was his, the roads through it were the public’s.

As Sir Roger drove homeward from the assize, which finally settled the question of these footpaths, he heard the bells in all the steeples of Great Stockington burst forth with a grand peal of triumph.  He closed first the windows of his fine old carriage, and sunk into a corner; but he could not drown the intolerable sound.  “But,” said he, “I’ll stop their picnic-ing.  I’ll stop their fishing.  I’ll have hold of them for trespassing and poaching!” There was war henceforth between Rockville and Great Stockington.

On the very next Sunday there came literally thousands of the jubilant Stockingtonians to Rockville.  They had brought baskets, and were for dining, and drinking success to all footpaths.  But in the great grove there were keepers, and watchers, who warned them to keep the path, that narrow well-worn line up the middle of the grove.  “What! were they not to sit on the grass?”—­“No!”—­“What! were they not to picnic?”—­“No! not there!”

The Stockingtonians felt a sudden damp on their spirits.  But the river bank!  The cry was “To the river bank!  There they would picnic.”  The crowd rushed away down the wood, but on the river bank they found a whole regiment of watchers, who pointed again to the narrow line of footpath, and told them not to trespass beyond it.  But the islands! they went over to the islands.  But there too were Sir Roger’s forces, who warned them back!  There was no road there—­all found there would be trespassers, and be duly punished.

The Stockingtonians discovered that their triumph was not quite so complete as they had flattered themselves.  The footpaths were theirs, but that was all.  Their ancient license was at an end.  If they came there, there was no more fishing; if they came in crowds, there was no more picnic-ing; if they walked through the woods in numbers, they must keep to Indian file, or they were summoned before the county magistrates for trespass, and were soundly fined; and not even the able Daredeville would undertake to defend them.