Then the pony was promised; and Kate, trusting in Tony Tuppett's sagacity, was happy.
"Have you heard of all this about Dillsborough Wood?" asked Mrs. Masters. The attorney shrank at the question, and shook himself uneasily in his chair.
"Yes; I've heard about it," said Larry.
"And what do you think about it? I don't see why Lord Rufford is to ride over everybody because he's a lord." Mr. Twentyman scratched his head. Though a keen sportsman himself, he did not specially like Lord Rufford,—a fact which had been very well known to Mrs. Masters. But, nevertheless, this threatened action against the nobleman was distasteful to him. It was not a hunting affair, or Mr. Twentyman could not have doubted for a moment. It was a shooting difficulty, and as Mr. Twentyman had never been asked to fire a gun on the Rufford preserves, it was no great sorrow to him that there should be such a difficulty. But the thing threatened 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."