ere, I don't doubt."

CHAPTER LXXV

The Trumpeton Feud Is Settled

In these fine early autumn days spent at Matching, the great
Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer
considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain
articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the
new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county
in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at
considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not,
to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary
thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders,--to Americans, let us say, or
Frenchmen,--there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By
what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of
injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no
sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in
which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the
Duke's own,--to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be
demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger
to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal
had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the
unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent
arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The Brake Hunt had been
established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of
a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation
of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and
Suffolk, but could not be so in the Brake country. Many things are,
no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the
doer of them to be the enemy of his species,--and this destruction
of foxes in a hunting country may be named as one of them. The Duke
might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased, but he could hardly
do so and remain a popular magnate in England. If he chose to put
himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people
among whom his property was situated, he must live as a "man forbid."
That was the general argument, and then there was the argument
special to this particular case. As it happened, Trumpeton Wood was,
and always had been, the great nursery of foxes for that side of the
Brake country. Gorse coverts make, no doubt, the charm of hunting,
but gorse coverts will not hold foxes unle