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?