“I never mean to do so,” said Mary, resolutely.
“Stoutly spoken,” said he, smiling; “but, unfortunately, he who hears it could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism to be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was a very beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't swear she 'd never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle may go to live in London,—abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin—”
“Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his name too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!”
“Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an old lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have once pronounced impossible,—ay, just as roundly as you said the word yourself,—and seen people and things under aspects so totally the reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to believe that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and that you and I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything, everything, but the condition in which at present we find ourselves. Now, I don't want to discourage you with the noble career you have opened for yourself here. I am far more likely to be fascinated—I was going to say fall in love—with you for it, than to try and turn your thoughts elsewhere; but as to these people themselves, the experiment comes too late.”
“Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve misery, and console misfortune?” broke in Mary, eagerly.
“It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829, Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by a Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might never have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real gentleman; he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and horsewhipped all around him; and what with duelling of a morning and drinking over-night, taught the people a code of morals that has assumed all the compactness of a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land corrupted from the top, and every vice of its gentry has but filtered down to its populace! What was that I heard?—was it not a shot?” cried he, reining in his horse to listen.
“I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the quarries.”
“And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the poacher?”
“I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman.”
“So he is,” cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke; “and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up' into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one of the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur with him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably brought in a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch to transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,—it was at Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual, the jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little for the case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so palpably proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed their heads together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury saw the movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon his hand, mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences, 'A poor man—with a large family—great temptation—and, after all, a slight offence,—a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took courage; they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's heart, and that they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty, my Lord,' said the foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the judge, with a look at the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They were 'done,' but there never was another conviction in that town afterwards.”