AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE Helen was very much upset by the painful scene which had just been enacted.

Its vulgarity appalled her.

In a little old-world hamlet like Sleagill, a riotous cow or frightened horse supplied sensation for a week.
What would happen when it became known that the rector's daughter had been attacked by the Squire of Beechcroft in the park meadow, and saved from his embraces only after a vigorous struggle, in which her defender was David Hume-Frazer, concerning whom the villagers still spoke with bated breath?
Of course, the girl imagined that many people must have witnessed the occurrence.

The appearance of Brett, of the waiting groom, and of a chance labourer who now strode up the village street, led her to think so.
She did not realise that the whole affair had barely lasted a minute, that Brett was Hume's friend, the man-servant a stranger who had seen nothing and heard little, whilst the villager only wondered, when he touched his cap, "why Miss Layton was so flustered like." Brett attributed her agitation to its right cause.

He knew that this healthy, high-minded, and athletic young woman went under no fear of Capella and his ravings.
"What happened when you jumped the hedge ?" he said to Hume.
"I handled that scoundrel somewhat roughly," was the answer.