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. Mr. Runciman declared
that they must set their wits to work not only to find the criminal
but to prove the crime against him, and offered to subscribe a
couple of sovereigns on the spot to a common fund to be raised for
the purpose. "I don't know what is to be done with a country like
this," said Captain Glomax, who, as an itinerant, was not averse to
cast a slur upon the land of his present sojourn.
"I don't remember anything like it on my property before," said the
lord, standing up for his own estate and the county at large.
"Nor in the hunt," said young Hampton.
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