a good word to say for Reginald Morton—to which she would not even listen. She was willing enough to ask questions about the Mallingham tenants;—but Mr. Cooper would revert back to the old days, and so conversation was at an end.
Morton tried to make himself agreeable to his left-hand neighbour—trying also very hard to make himself believe that he was happy in his immediate position. How often in the various amusements of the world is one tempted to pause a moment and ask oneself whether one really likes it! He was conscious that he was working hard, struggling to be happy, painfully anxious to be sure that he was enjoying the luxury of being in love. But he was not at all contented. There she was, and very beautiful she looked; and he thought that he could be proud of her if she sat at the end of his table;—and he knew that she was engaged to be his wife. But he doubted whether she was in love with him; and he almost doubted sometimes whether he was very much in love with her. He asked her in so many words what he should do to amuse her. Would she like to ride with him, as if so he would endeavour to get saddle-horses. Would she like to go out hunting? Would she be taken round to see the neighbouring towns, Rufford and Norrington? "Lord Rufford lives somewhere near Rufford?" she asked. Yes;—he lived at Rufford Hall, three or four miles from the town. Did Lord Rufford hunt? Morton believed that he was greatly given to hunting. Then he asked Arabella whether she knew the young lord. She had just met him, she said, and had only asked the question because of the name. "He is one of my neighbours down here," said Morton;—"but being always away of course I see nothing of him." After that Arabella consented to be taken out on horseback to see a meet of the hounds although she could not hunt. "We must see what we can do about horses," he said. She however professed her readiness to go in the carriage if a saddle-horse could not be found.
The dinner party I fear was very dull. Mr. Mainwaring perhaps liked it because he was fond of dining anywhere away from home. Mr. Cooper was glad once more to see his late old friend's old dining-room. Mr. Gotobed perhaps obtained some information. But otherwise the affair was dull. "Are we to have a week of this?" said Lady Augustus when she found herself up-stairs.
"You must, mamma, if we are to stay till we go to the Gores. Lord Rufford is here in the neighbourhood."
"But they don't know each other."
"Yes they do;—slightly. I am to go to the meet some day and he'll be there."
"It might be dangerous."
"Nonsense, mamma! And after all you've been saying about dropping Mr. Morton!"
"But there is nothing so bad as a useless flirtation."
"Do I ever flirt? Oh, mamma, that after so many years you shouldn't know me! Did you ever see me yet making myself happy in any way? What nonsense you talk!" Then without waiting for, or making, any apology, she walked off to her own room.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DILLSBOROUGH FEUD.
"It's that nasty, beastly, drunken club," said Mrs. Masters to her unfortunate husband on the Wednesday morning. It may perhaps be remembered that the poisoned fox was found on the Saturday, and it may be imagined that Mr. Goarly had risen in importance since that day. On the Saturday Bean with a couple of men employed by Lord Rufford, had searched the wood, and found four or five red herrings poisoned with strychnine. There had been no doubt about the magnitude of the offence. On the Monday a detective policeman, dressed of course in rustic disguise but not the less known to every one in the place, was wandering about between Dillsborough and Dillsborough Wood and making futile inquiries as to the purchase of strychnine—and also as to the purchase of red herrings. But every one knew, and such leading people as Runciman and Dr. Nupper were not slow to declare, that Dillsborough was the only place in England in which one might be sure that those articles had not been purchased. And on the Tuesday it began to be understood that Goarly had applied to Bearside, the other attorney, in reference to his claim against Lord Rufford's pheasants. He had contemptuously refused the 7s. 6d. an acre offered him, and put his demand at 40s. As to the poisoned fox and the herrings and the strychnine Goarly declared that he didn't care if there were twenty detectives in the place. He stated it to be his opinion that Larry Twentyman had put down the poison. It was all very well, Goarly said, for Larry to be fond of gentlemen and to ride to hounds, and make pretences;—but Larry liked his turkeys as well as anybody else, and Larry had put down the poison. In this matter Goarly overreached himself. No one in Dillsborough could be brought to believe that. Even Harry Stubbings was ready to swear that he should suspect himself as soon. But nothing was clearer than this—that Goarly was going to make a stand against the hunt and especially against Lord Rufford. He had gone to Bearside and Bearside had taken up the matter in a serious way. Then it became known very quickly that Bearside had already received money, and it was surmised that Goarly had some one at his back. Lord Rufford had lately ejected from a house of his on the other side of the county a discontented litigious retired grocer from Rufford, who had made some money and had set himself up in a pretty little residence with a few acres of land. The man had made himself objectionable and had been dispossessed. The man's name was Scrobby; and hence had come these sorrows. This was the story that had already made itself known in Dillsborough on the Tuesday evening. But up to that time not a tittle of evidence had come to light as to the purchase of the red herrings or the strychnine. All that was known was the fact that had not Tony Tuppett stopped the hounds before they reached the wood, there must have been a terrible mortality. "It's that nasty, beastly, drunken club," said Mrs. Masters to her husband. Of course it was at this time known to the lady that her husband had thrown away Goarly's business and that it had been transferred to Bearside. It was also surmised by her, as it was by the town in general, that Goarly's business would come to considerable dimensions;—just the sort of case as would have been sure to bring popularity if carried through, as Nickem, the senior clerk, would have carried it. And as soon as Scrobby's name was heard by Mrs. Masters, there was no end to the money in the lady's imagination to which this very case might not have amounted.
"The club had nothing to do with it, my dear."
"What time did you come home on Saturday night;—or Sunday morning I mean? Do you mean to tell me you didn't settle it there?"
"There was no nastiness, and no beastliness, and no drunkenness about it. I told you before I went that I wouldn't take it."
"No;—you didn't. How on earth are you to go on if you chuck the children's bread out of their mouths in that way?"
"You won't believe me. Do you ask Twentyman what sort of a man Goarly is." The attorney knew that Larry was in great favour with his wife as being the favoured suitor for Mary's hand, and had thought that this argument would be very strong.
"I don't want Mr. Twentyman to teach me what is proper for my family—nor yet to teach you your business. Mr. Twentyman has his own way of living. He brought home Kate the other day with hardly a rag of her sister's habit left. She don't go out hunting any more."
"Very well, my dear."
"Indeed for the matter of that I don't see how any of them are to do anything. What'll Lord Rufford do for you?"
"I don't want Lord Rufford to do anything for me." The attorney was beginning to have his spirit stirred within him.
"You don't want anybody to do anything, and yet you will do nothing yourself—just because a set of drinking fellows in a tap-room, which you call a club—"
"It isn't a tap-room."
"It's worse,
