“She was paid for a great many more than she lost, Mr. Gotobed.”

“That doesn’t touch upon the injustice of the proceeding.  Who assessed the loss, sir?  Who valued the geese?  Am I to keep a pet tiger in my garden, and give you a couple of dollars when he destroys your pet dog, and think myself justified because dogs as a rule are not worth more than two dollars each?  She has a right to her own geese on her own ground.”

“And Lord Rufford, sir, as I take it,” said Runciman, who had been allowed to come up and hear the end of the conversation, “has a right to his own foxes in his own coverts.”

“Yes,—­if he could keep them there, my friend.  But as it is the nature of foxes to wander away and to be thieves, he has no such right.”

“Of course, sir, begging your pardon,” said Runciman, “I was speaking of England.”  Runciman had heard of the Senator Gotobed, as indeed had all Dillsborough by this time.

“And I am speaking of justice all the world over,” said the Senator slapping his hand upon his thigh.  “But I only want to see.  It may be that England is a country in which a poor man should not attempt to hold a few acres of land.”

On that night the Dillsborough club met as usual and, as a matter of course, Goarly and the American Senator were the subjects chiefly discussed.  Everybody in the room knew,—­or thought that he knew,—­that Goarly was a cheating fraudulent knave, and that Lord Rufford was, at any rate, in this case acting properly.  They all understood the old goose, and were aware, nearly to a bushel, of the amount of wheat which the man had sold off those two fields.  Runciman knew that the interest on the mortgage had been paid, and could only have been paid out of the produce; and Larry Twentyman knew that if Goarly took his 7s. 6d. an acre he would be better off than if the wood had not been there.  But yet among them all they didn’t quite see how they were to confute the Senator’s logic.  They could not answer it satisfactorily, even among themselves; but they felt that if Goarly could be detected in some offence, that would confute the Senator.  Among themselves it was sufficient to repeat the well-known fact that Goarly was a rascal; but with reference to this aggravating, interfering, and most obnoxious American it would be necessary to prove it.

“His Lordship has put it into Masters’s hands, I’m told,” said the doctor.  At this time neither the attorney nor Larry Twentyman were in the room.

“He couldn’t have done better,” said Runciman, speaking from behind a long clay pipe.

“All the same he was nibbling at Goarly,” said Ned Botsey.

“I don’t know that he was nibbling at Goarly at all, Mr. Botsey,” said the landlord.  “Goarly came to him, and Goarly was refused.  What more would you have?”

“It’s all one to me,” said Botsey; “only I do think that in a sporting county like this the place ought to be made too hot to hold a blackguard like that.  If he comes out at me with his gun I’ll ride over him.  And I wouldn’t mind riding over that American too.”