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.
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