“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.

CHAPTER IV

The Dillsborough Club