“The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right?”
“So he does;—and it comes right. Our criminal practice does not sin on the side of severity. But a barrister employed on the prosecution should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict which must animate those engaged on the defence.”
“Then I suppose you wanted to—hang me, Sir Gregory.”
“Certainly not. I wanted the truth. But you in your position must have regarded me as a bloodhound.”
“I did not. As far as I can analyse my own feelings, I entertained anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that I was guilty.”
“You will allow me, at any rate, to shake hands with you,” said Sir Gregory, “and to assure you that I should have lived a brokenhearted man if the truth had been known too late. As it is I tremble and shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been done.” Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory.
Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame Goesler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him. Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found himself driven to talk of it. It had seemed quite natural that Sir Gregory—who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking him to have been guilty—should come to him and make peace with him by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon him;—and when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received the information about the key—that also was natural. A few days ago he had thought that these allusions would kill him. The prospect of them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings; but now he smiled and chatted, and was quiet and at ease.
“Good night, Mr. Finn,” the Duchess said to him, “I know the people have been boring you.”
“Not in the least.”
“I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was talking about.”
“I like Sir Gregory, Duchess.”
“That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it had to be done, hadn’t it?—And now there will be an end of it.”
“Everybody has treated me very well,” said Phineas, almost in tears. “Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it should have been so.”
“Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We—that is, Marie and I, you know—thought it would be the best thing for you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you weren’t driven too hard. By the by, you have hardly seen her—have you?”
“Hardly, since I was upstairs with your Grace.”
“My Grace will manage better for you tomorrow. I didn’t like to tell you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain’t grateful you must be a wretch.”
“But I am grateful.”
“Well; we shall see. Good night. You’ll find a lot of men going to smoke somewhere, I don’t doubt.”
LXXV
The Trumpeton Feud Is Settled
In these fine early autumn days spent at Matching, the great Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not, to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders—to Americans, let us say, or Frenchmen—there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the Duke’s own—to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The Brake Hunt had been established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and Suffolk, but could not be so in the Brake country. Many things are, no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the doer
