Then the Major got up, and certainly as far as attention went he had full justice done him.  However clamorous they might intend to be afterwards that amount of fair play they were all determined to afford him.  The Major was not excellent at speaking, but he did perhaps better than might have been expected.  ’This is a very disagreeable position,’ he said, ’very disagreeable indeed.  As for the nail in the horse’s foot I know no more about it than the babe unborn.  But I’ve got two things to say, and I’ll say what aren’t the most consequence first.  These hounds belong to me.’  Here he paused, and a loud contradiction came from many parts of the room.  Mr Jawstock, however, proposed that the Major should be heard to the end.  ‘I say they belong to me,’ repeated the Major.  ’If anybody tries his hand at anything else the law will soon set that to rights.  But that aren’t of much consequence.  What I’ve got to say is this.  Let the matter be referred.  If that ’orse had a nail in run into his foot,—­and I don’t say he hadn’t,—­who was the man most injured?  Why, Lord Silverbridge.  Everybody knows that.  I suppose he dropped well on to eighty thousand pounds!  I propose to leave it to him.  Let him say.  He ought to know more about it than anyone.  He and I were partners in the horse.  His Lordship aren’t very sweet upon me at the just at present.  Nobody need fear that he’ll do me a good turn.  I say leave it to him.’

In the matter the Major had certainly been well advised.  A rumour had come become prevalent among sporting circles that Silverbridge had refused to condemn the Major.  It was known that he had paid his bets without delay, and that he had, to some extent, declined to take advice from the leaders of the Jockey Club.  The Major’s friends were informed that the young lord had refused to vote against him at the club.  Was it not more than probable that if this matter were referred to him he would refuse to give a verdict against his late partner?

The Major sat down, put on his cap, and folded his arms akimbo, with his horn sticking out from his left hand.  For a time there was a general silence, broken, however, by murmurs in different parts of the room.  Then Mr Jawstock whispered something into the ear of the Chairman, and Mr Topps, rising from his seat, suggested to Tifto that he should retire.  ‘I think so,’ said Jawstock.  ’The proposition that you have made can only be discussed only in your absence.’  Then the Major held a consultation with one of his friends, and after that did retire.

When he was gone the real hubbub of the meeting commenced.  There were some there who understood the nature of Lord Silverbridge’s feelings in the matter.  ’He would be the last man in England to declare him guilty,’ said Mr Jawstock.  ’Whatever my lord says, he shan’t ride across my land,’ said a farmer in the background.  ’I don’t think any gentleman ever made a fairer proposition,—­since anything was anything,’ said a friend of the