"Well, wait another minute, then," said Audrey, who had continued to walk forward, steadily regarding the agent's threatening figure. "Let me talk a little, first—I'm enjoying it. Are you addressing me, Mr. Chatfield?" she went on in her sweetest accents. "I hear you speaking, but I don't know if you are speaking to me. If so, you needn't shout."
"You know very well who I'm a-speaking to," growled Chatfield. "I told you you wasn't to come near these ruins—it's forbidden, by order. You'll take yourself off, and that there young man with you—we want no paid spies hereabouts!"
"If you speak to me like that again I'll knock you down!" exclaimed Copplestone, stepping forward before Audrey could stop him. "Or to this lady, either. Stand aside, will you?"
Chatfield twisted on his heel with a surprising agility—not to stand aside, but to wave his arm to the men who stood here and there, behind him.
"Here, you!" he shouted. "Here, this way, all of you! This here fellow's threatening me with assault. You lay a finger on me, you young snapper, and I'll have you in the lock-up in ten minutes. Stand between us, you men!—he's for knocking me down. Now then!" he went on, as the bodyguard got between him and Copplestone, "off you go, out o' these grounds, both of you—quick! I'll have no defiance of my orders from neither gel nor boy, man nor woman. Out you go, now—or you'll be put out."
But Audrey continued to advance, still watching the agent. "You're under a mistake, Mr. Chatfield," she said calmly. "You will observe that Mr. Copplestone and I are on this path. You know very well that this is a public foot-path, with a proper and legal right-of-way from time immemorial. You can't turn us off it, you know—without exposing yourself to all sorts of pains and penalties. You men know that, too," she continued, turning to the labourers and dropping her bantering tone. "You all know this is a public footpath. So stand out of our way, or I'll summon every one of you!"
The last words were spoken with so much force and decision that the three labourers involuntarily moved aside. But Chatfield hastened to oppose Audrey's progress, planting himself in front of a wicket-gate which there stood across the path, and he laughed sneeringly.
"And where would you find money to take summonses out?" he said, with a look of contempt, "I should think you and your mother's something better to do with your bit o' money than that. Now then, no more words!—back you turn!"
Copplestone's temper had been gradually rising during the last few minutes. Now, at the man's carefully measured taunts, he let it go. Before Chatfield or the labourers saw what he was at, he sprang on the agent's big form, grasped him by the neck with one hand, twisted his oak staff away from him with the other, flung him headlong on the turf, and raised the staff threateningly.
"Now!" he said, "beg Miss Greyle's pardon, instantly, or I'll split your wicked old head for you. Quick, man—I mean it!"