And the men looked to be dumbfoundered and sheepfaced. They kept out of Captain Clayton's way, and answered him as little as possible. "What's the good of axing when ye knows that I knows nothing?" This was the answer of one man, and was a fair sample of the answers of many; but they were given in such a tone that Clayton was beginning to think that the evil was about to work its own cure. "Frank," he said one day when he was walking with his friend in the gloom of the evening, "this state of things is too horrible to endure." The faithful Hunter followed them, and another policeman, for the Captain was never allowed to stir two steps without the accompaniment of a brace of guards. "Much too horrible to be endured," said Frank. "My idea is that a man, in order to make the best of himself, should run away from it. Life in the United States has no such horrors as these. Though we're apt to say that all this comes from America, I don't see American hands in it." "You see American money." "American money in the shape of dollar bills; but they have all been sent by Irish people. The United States is a large place, and there is room there, I think, for an honest man." "I'll never be frightened out of my own country," said Clayton. "Nor do I think there is occasion. These abominable reprobates are not going to prevail in the end." "They have prevailed with poor Tom Daly. He was a man who worked as hard as anyone to find amusement,--and employment too. He never wronged anyone. He was even so honest as to charge a fair price for his horses. And there he is, left high and dry, without a horse or a hound that he can venture to keep about his own place. And simply because the majority of the people have chosen that there shall be no more hunting; and they have proved themselves to be able to have their own way. It is impossible that poor Daly should hunt if they will not permit him, and they carry their orders so far that he cannot even keep a hound in his kennels because they do not choose to allow it." "And this you think will be continued always?" asked Clayton. "For all that I can see it may go on for ever. My father has had those water gates mended on the meadows though he could ill afford it. I have told him that they may go again to-morrow. There is no reason to judge that they should not do so. The only two men,--or the man, rather, and the boy,--who have been punished for the last attempt were those who endeavoured to tell of it. See what has come of that!" "All that is true." "Will it not be better to go to America, to go to Africa, to go to Asia, or to Russia even, than to live in a country like this, where the law can afford you no protection, and where the lawgivers only injure you?" "I know nothing about the lawgivers," said Clayton, "but I have to say a word or two about the law. Do you think this kind of thing is going to remain?" "It does remain, and every day becomes worse."