[WikiEN-l] A quotation

[Daniel P.B.Smith]

(From "The Hound of the Baskervilles," one of the Sherlock Holmes 
novels by Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall ... is an elderly man, red-faced, 
white-haired, and choleric. His passion is for the British law, and he 
has spent a large fortune in litigation.  He fights for the mere 
pleasure of fighting and is equally ready to take up either side of a 
question, so that it is no wonder that he has found it a costly 
amusement.  Sometimes he will shut up a right of way and defy the 
parish to make him open it.  At others he will with his own hands tear 
down some other man's gate and declare that a path has existed there 
from time immemorial, defying the owner to prosecute him for trespass. 
He is learned in old manorial and communal rights, and he applies his 
knowledge sometimes in favour of the villagers of Fernworthy and 
sometimes against them, so that he is periodically either carried in 
triumph down the village street or else burned in effigy, according to 
his latest exploit.  He is said to have about seven lawsuits upon his 
hands at present, which will probably swallow up the remainder of his 
fortune and so draw his sting and leave him harmless for the future....

"It is a great day for me, sir--one of the red-letter days of my life," 
he cried with many chuckles.  "I have brought off a double event.  I 
mean to teach them in these parts that law is law, and that there is a 
man here who does not fear to invoke it.  I have established a right of 
way through the centre of old Middleton's park, slap across it, sir, 
within a hundred yards of his own front door.  What do you think of 
that?  We'll teach these magnates that they cannot ride roughshod over 
the rights of the commoners, confound them!  And I've closed the wood 
where the Fernworthy folk used to picnic.  These infernal people seem 
to think that there are no rights of property, and that they can swarm 
where they like with their papers and their bottles.  Both cases 
decided Dr. Watson, and both in my favour.  I haven't had such a day 
since I had Sir John Morland for trespass because he shot in his own 
warren."

"How on earth did you do that?"

"Look it up in the books, sir.  It will repay reading--Frankland v. 
Morland, Court of Queen's Bench.  It cost me 200 pounds, but I got my 
verdict."

"Did it do you any good?"

"None, sir, none.  I am proud to say that I had no interest in the 
matter.  I act entirely from a sense of public duty.  I have no doubt, 
for example, that the Fernworthy people will burn me in effigy tonight. 
I told the police last time they did it that they should stop these 
disgraceful exhibitions.  The County Constabulary is in a scandalous 
state, sir, and it has not afforded me the protection to which I am 
entitled.  The case of Frankland v. Regina will bring the matter before 
the attention of the public.  I told them that they would have occasion 
to regret their treatment of me, and already my words have come true."

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/