"Ah! yes, you're new there, certainly; you've enough of it at Greshamsbury, in all conscience. There's a larger extent of wood there than we have; isn't there, Fothergill?"
Mr. Fothergill said that the Greshamsbury woods were very extensive, but that, perhaps, he thought—
"Oh, ah! I know," said the duke. "The Black Forest in its old days was nothing to Gatherum woods, according to Fothergill. And then again, nothing in East Barsetshire could be equal to any thing in West Barsetshire. Isn't that it; eh, Fothergill?"
Mr. Fothergill professed that he had been brought up in that faith and intended to die in it.
"Your exotics at Boxall Hill are very fine—magnificent!" said Mr. Sowerby.
"I'd sooner have one full-grown oak standing in its pride alone," said young Gresham, rather grandiloquently, "than all the exotics in the world."
"They'll come in due time," said the duke.
"But the due time won't be in my days. And so they're going to cut down Chaldicotes forest, are they, Mr. Sowerby?"
"Well, I can't tell you that. They are going to disforest it. I have been ranger since I was twenty-two, and I don't yet know whether that means cutting down."
"Not only cutting down, but rooting up," said Mr. Fothergill.
"It's a murderous shame," said Frank Gresham; "and I will say one thing, I don't think any but a Whig government would do it."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed his grace. "At any rate, I'm sure of this," he said, "that if a conservative government did do so, the Whigs would be just as indignant as you are now."
"I'll tell you what you ought to do, Mr. Gresham," said Sowerby—"put in an offer for the whole of the West Barsetshire crown property; they would be very glad to sell it."
"And we should be delighted to welcome you on this side of the border," said the duke.
Young Gresham did feel rather flattered. There were not many men in the county to whom such an offer could be made without an absurdity. It might be doubted
