In the meantime the hunting season was going on in the Brake country with chequered success. There had arisen the great Trumpeton Wood question, about which the sporting world was doomed to hear so much for the next twelve months — and Lord Chiltern was in an unhappy state of mind. Trumpeton Wood belonged to that old friend of ours, the Duke of Omnium, who had now almost fallen into second childhood. It was quite out of the question that the Duke should himself interfere in such a matter, or know anything about it; but Lord Chiltern, with headstrong resolution, had persisted in 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 rate in furtherance of his wishes, and, could he have had his way, he certainly would have sent Mr Fothergill to the gallows. Now, Miss Palliser, who was still staying at Lord Chiltern’s house, was niece to the old Duke, and first cousin to the heir. “They are nothing to me,” she said once, when Lord Chiltern had attempted to apologise for the abuse he was heaping on her relatives. “I haven’t seen the Duke since I was a little child, and I shouldn’t know my cousin were I to meet him.”

“So much the more gracious is your condition,” said Lady Chiltern — “at any rate in Oswald’s estimation.”

“I know them, and once spent a couple of days at Matching with them,” said Lord Chiltern. “The Duke is an old fool, who always gave himself greater airs than any other man in England — and as far as I can see, with less to excuse them. As for Planty Pall, he and I belong so essentially to different orders of things, that we can hardly be reckoned as being both men.”

“And which is the man, Lord Chiltern?”

“Whichever you please, my dear; only not both. Doggett was over there yesterday, and found three separate traps.”

“What did he do with the traps?” said Lady Chiltern.

“I wasn’t fool enough to ask him, but I don’t in the least doubt that he threw them into the water — or that he’d throw Palliser there too if he could get hold of him. As for taking the hounds to Trumpeton again, I wouldn’t do it if there were not another covert in the country.”

“Then leave it so, and have done with it,” said his wife. “I wouldn’t fret as you do for what another man did with his own property, for all the foxes in England.”

“That is because you understand nothing of hunting, my dear. A man’s property is his own in one sense, but isn’t his own in another. A man can’t do what he likes with his coverts.”

“He can cut them down.”

“But he can’t let another pack hunt them, and he can’t hunt them himself. If he’s in a hunting county he is bound to preserve foxes.”

“What binds him, Oswald? A man can’t be bound without a penalty.”

“I should think it penalty enough for everybody to hate me. What are you going to do about Phineas Finn?”

“I have asked him to come on the 1st and stay till Parliament meets.”

“And is that woman coming?”

“There are two or three women coming.”

“She with the German name, whom you made me dine with in Park Lane?”

“Madame Max Goesler is coming. She brings her own horses, and they will stand at Doggett’s.”

“They can’t stand here, for there is not a stall.”

“I am so sorry that my poor little fellow should incommode you,” said Miss Palliser.

“You’re a licensed offender — though, upon my honour, I don’t know whether I ought to give a feed of oats to anyone having a connection with Trumpeton Wood. And what is Phineas to ride?”

“He shall ride my horses,” said Lady Chiltern, whose present condition in life rendered hunting inopportune to her.

“Neither of them would carry him a mile. He wants about as good an animal as you can put him upon. I don’t know what I’m to do. It’s all very well for Laura to say that he must be mounted.”

“You wouldn’t refuse to give Mr Finn a mount!” said Lady Chiltern, almost with dismay.

“I’d give him my right hand to ride, only it wouldn’t carry him. I can’t make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won’t get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can’t understand. I’ve killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about as these fellows do.”

“Then I’d better write to Mr Finn, and tell him,” said Lady Chiltern, very gravely.

“Oh, Phineas Finn!” said Lord Chiltern; “oh, Phineas Finn! what a pity it was that you and I didn’t see the matter out when we stood opposite to each other on the sands at Blankenberg!”

“Oswald,” said his wife, getting up, and putting her arm over his shoulder, “you know you would give your best horse to Mr Finn, as long as he chose to stay here, though you rode upon a donkey yourself.”

“I know that if I didn’t, you would,” said Lord Chiltern. And so the matter was settled.

At night, when they were alone together, there was further discussion as to the visitors who were coming to Harrington Hall. “Is Gerard Maule to come back?” asked the husband.

“I have asked him. He left his horses at Doggett’s, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I certainly told you, Oswald. Do you object to his coming? You can’t really mean that you care about his riding?”

“It isn’t that. You must have some whipping post, and he’s as good as another. But he shilly-shallies about that girl. I hate all that stuff like poison.”

“All men are not so — abrupt shall I say? — as you were.”

“I had something to say, and I said it. When I had said it a dozen times, I got to have it believed. He doesn’t say it as though he m............