who I found was his lawyer, and they marched after the
carriage. Then the constable was standing at his door too, and he
came after us, and there was a group of men outside the rectory
gate. We had not been in the house five minutes before a servant
came in to say that Farmer Tester and a gentlemen wanted to see
papa on particular business. Papa sent out word that he was very
unwell, and that it was not the proper time to come on business;
he would see them the next day at twelve o'clock. But they would
not go away, and then papa asked me to go out and see them. You
can fancy how disagreeable it was; and I was so angry with them
for coming, when they knew how nervous papa is after a journey,
that I could not have patience to persuade them to leave; and so
at last they made poor papa see them after all.

"He was lying on a sofa, and quite unfit to cope with a hard bad
man like Farmer Tester, and a fluent plausible lawyer. They told
their story all their own way, and the farmer declared that the
man had tempted the pony into the allotment with corn. And the
lawyer said that the constable had no right to keep the pony in
the pound, that he was liable to all sorts of punishments. They
wanted papa to make an order at once for the pound to be opened,
and I think he would have done so, but I asked him in a whisper
to send for the constable, and hear what he had to say. The
constable was waiting in the kitchen, so he came in in a minute.
You can't think how well he behaved; I have quite forgiven him
all his obstinacy about the singing. He told the whole story
about the pigs, and how Farmer Tester had stopped money out of
the men's wages. And when the lawyer tried to frighten him, he
answered him quite boldly, that he mightn't know so much about
the law, but he knew what was always the custom long before his
time at Englebourn about the pound, and if Farmer Tester wanted
his beast out, he must bring the 'tally' like another man. Then
the lawyer appealed to papa about the law, and said how absurd it
was, and that if such a custom were to be upheld, the man who had
the 'tally' might charge 100L. for the damage. And poor papa
looked through his law books, and could find nothing about it at
all; and while he was doing it Farmer Tester began to abuse the
constable, and said he sided with all the good-for-nothing
fellows in the parish, and that bad blood would come of it. But
the constable quite fired up at that, and told him that