n writing to the
Duke himself. Foxes had always hitherto been preserved in Trumpeton
Wood, and the earths had always been stopped on receipt of due notice
by the keepers. During the cubbing season there had arisen quarrels.
The keepers complained that no effort was made to kill the foxes.
Lord Chiltern swore that the earths were not stopped. Then there came
tidings of a terrible calamity. A dying fox, with a trap to its pad,
was found in the outskirts of the Wood; and Lord Chiltern wrote to
the Duke. He drew the Wood in regular course before any answer could
be received,--and three of his hounds picked up poison, and died
beneath his eyes. He wrote to the Duke again,--a cutting letter; and
then came from the Duke's man of business, Mr. Fothergill, a very
short reply, which Lord Chiltern regarded as an insult. Hitherto the
affair had not got into the sporting papers, and was simply a matter
of angry discussion at every meet in the neighbouring counties. Lord
Chiltern was very full of wrath, and always looked as though he
desired to avenge those poor hounds on the Duke and all belonging to
him. To a Master of Hounds the poisoning of one of his pack is murder
of the deepest dye. There probably never was a Master who in his
heart of hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit
should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further
than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the
owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be
held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership
was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost
imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not
energetic manner, he had endeavoured to do his duty by the country.
His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, was simply a statesman, who, as
regarded himself, had never a day to spare for amusement; and who, in
reference to sport, had unfortunate fantastic notions that pheasants
and rabbits destroyed crops, and that foxes were injurious to old
women's poultry. He, however, was not the owner, and had refused
to interfere. There had been family quarrels too, adverse to the
sporting interests of the younger Palliser scions, so that the
shooting of this wood had drifted into the hands of Mr. Fothergill
and his friends. Now, Lord Chiltern had settled it in his own mind
that the hounds had been poisoned, if not in compliance with Mr.
Fothergill's orders, at any r