The American Senator

I never could understand why anybody should ever have begun to live at Dillsborough, or why the population there should have been at any time recruited by newcomers. That a man with a family should cling to a house in which he has once established himself is intelligible. The butcher who supplied Dillsborough, or the baker, or the ironmonger, though he might not drive what is called a roaring trade, nevertheless found himself probably able to live, and might well hesitate before he would encounter the dangers of a more energetic locality. But how it came to pass that he first got himself to Dillsborough, or his father, or his grandfather before him, has always been a mystery to me. The town has no attractions, and never had any. It does not stand on a bed of coal and has no connection with iron. It has no water peculiarly adapted for beer, or for dyeing, or for the cure of maladies. It is not surrounded by beauty of scenery strong enough to bring tourists and holiday travellers. There is no cathedral there to form, with its bishops, prebendaries, and minor canons, the nucleus of a clerical circle. It manufactures nothing specially. It has no great horse fair, or cattle fair, or even pig market of special notoriety. Every Saturday farmers and graziers and buyers of corn and sheep do congregate in a sleepy fashion about the streets, but Dillsborough has no character of its own, even as a market town.

At six o’clock one November evening, Mr. Masters, the attorney, was sitting at home with his family in the large parlour of his house, his office being on the other side of the passage which cut the house in two and was formally called the hall. Upstairs, over the parlour, was a drawing-room; but this chamber, which was supposed to be elegantly furnished, was very rarely used. Mr. and Mrs. Masters did not see much company, and for family purposes the elegance of the drawing-room made it unfit. It added, however, not a little to the glory of Mrs. Masters’ life. The house itself was a low brick building in the High Street, at the corner where the High Street runs into the marketplace, and therefore, nearly opposite to the Bush. It had none of the elaborate grandeur of the inn nor of the simple stateliness of Hoppet Hall, but, nevertheless, it maintained the character of the town and was old, substantial, respectable, and dark.

“I think it a very spirited thing of him to do, then,” said Mrs. Masters.

“I don’t know, my dear. Perhaps it is only revenge.”

“What have you to do with that? What can it matter to a lawyer whether it’s revenge or anything else? He’s got the means, I suppose?”

“I don’t know, my dear.”

“What does Nickem say?”

“I suppose he has the means,” said Mr. Masters, who was aware that if he told his wife a fib on the matter, she would learn the truth from his senior clerk, Mr. Samuel Nickem.

“Keep a sort of hotel⁠—like?” suggested Mr. Gotobed. “Well, I don’t dislike hotel life, especially when there are no charges. How many servants do you want to keep up such a house as that?”

Mr. Morton explained that at present he knew very little about it himself, then led him away by the path over the bridge, and turning to the left showed him the building which had once been the kennels of the Rufford hounds. “All that for dogs!” exclaimed Mr. Gotobed.

“All for dogs,” said Morton. “Hounds, we generally call them.”

“Hounds are they? Well;⁠—I’ll remember; though ‘dogs’ seems to me more civil. How many used there to be?”

“About fifty couple, I think.”

“A hundred dogs! No wonder your country gentlemen burst up so often. Wouldn’t half-a-dozen do as well⁠—except for the show of the thing?”

“Half-a-dozen hounds couldn’t hunt a fox, Mr. Gotobed.”

“I guess half-a-dozen would do just as well, only for the show. What strikes me, Mr. Morton, on visiting this old country is that so much is done for show.”

The Senator and Morton followed close on the steps of Lord Rufford and Captain Glomax and were thus able to make their way into the centre of the crowd. There, on a clean sward of grass, laid out as carefully as though he were a royal child prepared for burial, was⁠—a dead fox. “It’s pi’son, my lord; it’s pi’son to a moral,” said Bean, who as keeper of the wood was bound to vindicate himself, and his master, and the wood. “Feel of him, how stiff he is.” A good many did feel, but Lord Rufford stood still and looked at the poor victim in silence. “It’s easy knowing how he come by it,” said Bean.

The men around gazed into each other’s faces with a sad tragic air, as though the occasion were one which at the first blush was too melancholy for many words. There was whispering here and there and one young farmer’s son gave a deep sigh, like a steam-engine beginning to work, and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “There ain’t nothin’ too bad⁠—nothin’,” said another⁠—leaving his audience to imagine whether he were alluding to the wretchedness of the world in general or to the punishment which was due to the perpetrator of this nefarious act. The dreadful word “vulpecide” was heard from various lips with an oath or two before it. “It makes me sick of my own land, to think it should be done so near,” said Larry Twentyman, who had just come up.

When the elder man entered the room the younger one put down his hat and bowed. Lord Augustus also bowed and then stood for a few moments silent with his fat hands extended on the round table in the middle of the room. “This is a very disagreeable kind of thing, my Lord,” he said.

“Very disagreeable, and one that I lament above all things,” answered Lord Rufford.

“That’s all very well;⁠—very well indeed;⁠—but, damme, what’s the meaning of it all? That’s what I want to ask. What’s the meaning of it all?” Then he paused as though he had completed the first part of his business⁠—and might now wait awhile till the necessary explanation had been given. But Lord Rufford did not seem disposed to give any immediate answer. He shrugged his shoulders, and, taking up his hat, passed his hand once or twice round the nap. Lord Augustus opened his eyes very wide as he waited and looked at the other man; but it seemed that the other man had nothing to say for himself. “You don’t mean to tell me, I suppose, that what my daughter says isn’t true.”

“Some unfortunate mistake, Lord Augustus;⁠—most unfortunate.”

“Mistake be ⸻.” He stopped himself before the sentence was completed, remembering that such an interview should be conducted on the part of him, as father, with something of dignity. “I don’t understand anything about mistakes. Ladies don’t make mistakes of that kind. I won’t hear of mistakes.” Lord Rufford again shrugged his shoulders. “You have engaged my daughter’s affections.”