And then a man stepped forward. "She's got to go," he said, "whoever she be. That's all."
"I tell you, you don't know who she is," Tom answered stubbornly. "Whose tenant are you, my man?"
"Sir Hervey's, to be sure," the fellow answered, surprised at the question.
"Well, she's his wife," Tom answered. "Do you hear? Do you understand?" he repeated, with growing indignation. "She is Lady Coke, Sir Hervey's wife. Lady Coke, Sir Hervey's wife! Get that into your heads, will you! His wife, I tell you. And if you raise a finger or wag a tongue against her, you'll repent it all your lives."
The man stared, doubting, hesitating, in part daunted. But a woman behind him--a lean vixen, her shoulders barely covered by a meagre kerchief, pushed herself to the front, and snapped her fingers in Tom's face. "That, my lady?" she cried. "That for the lie. You be a liar, my lad, that's what you be! A liar, and ought to swim with her. Neighbours," the shrew continued volubly, "she be no more my lady than I be. Madam told me she faked for to be it, but was a gipsy wench as had laid the night at Beamond's, and now was for 'fecting us."
"Anyway she don't go another step into this parish," pronounced an elderly man, something better off than the others. "We don't want to swim her, and we don't want to stone her, but she must go, or worse come of it. And you, my lad, if you be with her, and the other." For Lady Betty had crept timidly out of the garden-shed and joined the pair.
Tom was bursting with passion. "I!" he cried. "You clod, do you know who I am? I am Sir Thomas Maitland, of Cuckfield."
"Sir, or no sir, you'll ha' to go," the man retorted stubbornly. He was a dull fellow, and an unknown Sir Thomas was no more to him than plain Tom or Dick. "And 'tis best, with no more words," he continued heavily.
Tom, enraged, was for answering in the same strain, but Sophia plucked his sleeve, and took the word herself. "I am quite willing to go," she said, holding her head up bravely. "If you let me pass safely to the Hall, that is all I ask."
"To the Hall?"