“There’s two police,” said the old man, “an’ him that lives at Sallust’s dar’d them stop him.  They’re lookin’ on.  An’ there’s a parson among ’em.  I see him pullin’ away at the wall with his own han’s.”

“I will go and see the fun,” said Chester.

Lady Brandon hesitated.  But her anger and curiosity vanquished her fears.  She overtook the bicycle, and they went together through the gates and by the highroad to the scene the old man had described.  A heap of bricks and mortar lay in the roadway on each side of a breach in the newly built wall, over which Lady Brandon, from her eminence on horseback, could see, coming towards her across the pleasure ground, a column of about thirty persons.  They marched three abreast in good order and in silence; the expression of all except a few mirthful faces being that of devotees fulfilling a rite.  The gravity of the procession was deepened by the appearance of a clergyman in its ranks, which were composed of men of the middle class, and a few workmen carrying a banner inscribed the soil or England the Birthright of all her people.  There were also four women, upon whom Lady Brandon looked with intense indignation and contempt.  None of the men of the neighborhood had dared to join; they stood in the road whispering, and occasionally venturing to laugh at the jests of a couple of tramps who had stopped to see the fun, and who cared nothing for Sir Charles.

He, standing a little way within the field, was remonstrating angrily with a man of his own class, who stood with his back to the breach and his hands in the pockets of his snuff-colored clothes, contemplating the procession with elate satisfaction.  Lady Brandon, at once suspecting that this was the man from Sallust’s House, and encouraged by the loyalty of the crowd, most of whom made way for her and touched their hats, hit the bay horse smartly with her whip and rode him, with a clatter of hoofs and scattering of clods, right at the snuff-colored enemy, who had to spring hastily aside to avoid her.  There was a roar of laughter from the roadway, and the man turned sharply on her.  But he suddenly smiled affably, replaced his hands in his pockets after raising his hat, and said: 

“How do you do, Miss Carpenter?  I thought you were a charge of cavalry.”

“I am not Miss Carpenter, I am Lady Brandon; and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Smilash, if it is you that have brought these disgraceful people here.”

His eyes as he replied were eloquent with reproach to her for being no longer Miss Carpenter.  “I am not Smilash,” he said; “I am Sidney Trefusis.  I have just had the pleasure of meeting Sir Charles for the first time, and we shall be the best friends possible when I have convinced him that it is hardly fair to seize on a path belonging to the people and compel them to walk a mile and a half round his estate instead of four hundred yards between two portions of it.”