It was felt by everybody that the
Senator had the best of it. Mr. Scrobby was sent into durance for
twelve months with hard labour, and Goarly was conveyed away in the
custody of the police lest he should be torn to pieces by the rough
lovers of hunting who were congregated outside. When the sentence
had reached Mr. Runce's ears, and had been twice explained to him,
first by one neighbour and then by another, his face assumed the
very look which it had worn when he carried away his victuals from
the Senator's side at Rufford Hall, and when he had turned his pony
round on his own land on the previous evening. The man had killed a
fox and might have killed a dozen hounds, and was to be locked up
only for twelve months! He indignantly asked his neighbour what had
come of Van Diemen's land, and what was the use of Botany Bay.
On their way back to Rufford Hall, Lord Rufford would have been
triumphant, had not the Senator checked him. "It's a bad state of
things altogether," he said. "Of course the promiscuous use of
strychnine is objectionable."
"Rather," said his Lordship.
"But is it odd that an utterly uneducated man, one whom his country
has left to grow up in the ignorance of a brute, should have
recourse to any measure, however objectionable, when the law will
absolutely give him no redress against the trespass made by a
couple of hundred horsemen?" Lord Rufford gave it up, feeling the
Senator to be a man with whom he could not argue.
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