He thrust a newspaper from him. “It is in this damned Radical daily. Look at it, Julia! Where is Macduff! I want Macduff. I’ll send for my solicitor. Confound their impudence, and the lies—the lies!” Lord Lamerton gasped for breath, then he went on again, “From our Own Correspondent—who is he? If I knew I would have him dragged through the horse-pond; the grooms and keepers would do it—delighted to do it—if I stood consequences. Here am I held up as a monster of injustice, to the scorn, the abhorrence of all right-minded men, because I have capriciously closed the manganese mine. There is a harrowing picture drawn of a hundred householders thrown out of work—and thrown out of work, it is suggested, because at the last election they voted Liberal; I am depopulating Auburn—I am in a degree breaking up families. Not a word about the mine threatening my foundations—not a hint that I have lost a thousand pounds a year by it these five years. I am driving the trade out of the country; and, as if that were not enough, here is a sketch of the sort of house in which I pig my tenants—Patience Kite’s tumble-down hovel at the old lime-quarry! As if I were responsible for that, when she has it on lives, and we want to turn her out and repair it, and she won’t go. When we have condemned the house, and gone as far as the law will allow us! Where is Macduff? I must see Macduff about this; and then”—his lordship nearly strangled, his throat swelled and he was obliged to loose his cravat—“and then there is a picture drawn in the liveliest colours of Saltren’s house—I beg your pardon, Saltren, this must cause you as much annoyance as it does myself—of Chillacot, in beautiful order, as it is; Captain Saltren does right by whatever he has the care of—of Chillacot as an instance of a free holding, of a holding not under one of those leviathans, the great landlords of England. Look at this, then look at that—look at Patience Kite’s ruin and Captain Saltren’s villa; there you have in a nutshell the difference between free land and land in bonds, under one of the ogres, the earth-eaters. God bless my soul, it is monstrous; and it will all be believed, and I shall walk about pointed at as a tyrant, an enemy of the people, a disgrace to my country and my class. I don’t care whether she kicks and curses, I will take the law into my hands and at once have Mrs. Kite turned out, and her cottage pulled down or put in order. I suppose I dare not pull it down, or the papers will be down on me again. I will not have a cottage on my land described as this has been, and the blame laid on me; the woman shall give up her lease. How came the fellow to see the cottage? He describes it accurately; it is true that the door has tumbled in; it is true that the chimney threatens to fall; it is true that the staircase is all to pieces, but this is no fault of mine. He has talked to Mrs. Kite, but I am sure she never used the words he has put into her mouth.