He stayed at Dillsborough for three or four days during which he saw Goarly once and Bearside on two or three occasions,--and moreover handed to that busy attorney three bank notes for £5 each. Bearside was clever enough to make him believe that Goarly would certainly obtain serious damages from the lord. With Bearside he was fairly satisfied, thinking however that the man was much more illiterate and ignorant than the general run of lawyers in the United States; but with Goarly he was by no means satisfied. Goarly endeavoured to keep out of his way and could not be induced to come to him at the Bush. Three times he walked out to the house near Dillsborough Wood, on each of which occasions Mrs. Goarly pestered him for money, and told him at great length the history of her forlorn goose. Scrobby, of whom he had heard, he could not see at all; and he found that Bearside was very unwilling to say anything about Scrobby. Scrobby, and the red herrings and the strychnine and the dead fox were, according to Bearside, to be kept quite distinct from the pheasants and the wheat. Bearside declared over and over again that there was no evidence to connect his client with the demise of the fox. When asked whether he did not think that his client had compassed the death of the animal, he assured the Senator that in such matters he never ventured to think. "Let us go by the evidence, Mr. Gotobed," he said.
"But I am paying my money for the sake of getting at the facts."
"Evidence is facts, sir," said the attorney. "Any way let us settle about the pheasants first."
The condition of the Senator's mind may perhaps be best made known by a letter which he wrote from Dillsborough to his especial and well-trusted friend Josiah Scroome, a member of the House of Representatives from his own state of Mickewa. Since he had been in England he had written constantly to his friend, giving him the result of his British experiences.
Bush Inn, Dillsborough, Ufford County, England, December 16, 187--.
Since my last I have enjoyed myself very well and I am I trust beginning to understand something of the mode of thinking of this very peculiar people. That there should be so wide a difference between us Americans and these English, from whom we were divided, so to say, but the other day, is one of the most peculiar physiological phenomena that the history of the world will have afforded. As far as I can hear a German or even a Frenchman thinks much more as an Englishman thinks than does an American. Nor does this come mainly from the greater prevalence with us of democratic institutions. I do not think that any one can perceive in half an hour's conversation the difference between a Swiss and a German; but I fancy, and I may say I flatter myself, that an American is as easily distinguished from an Englishman, as a sheep from a goat or a tall man from one who is short.