was an attack upon the country gentry and their amusements, and Mr.
Twentyman was a country gentleman who followed sport. Upon the
whole his sympathies were with Lord Rufford.

"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.