"Who is there?"
"Man," bellowed the magistrate, "open the door and have done with it. I tell you I am a magistrate!"
There was silence. Then the voice came again.
"How do I know that you are?"
Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his hands on his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.
"Open the door, you fool, in the Queen's name…. I am Mr. Audrey, of
Matstead."
Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid his men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.
"I'll tell the mistress, sir…. She's a-bed."
* * * * *
His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fast yellowing sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and the far-off hills on the other side appeared like a pencil drawing, delicate, minute and colourless, or, at the most, faintly tinted in phantoms of their own colours. The sky, too, was grey with the night mists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly action, this of his, he thought. He must do his best to make it as little offensive as he could. He turned to his men.