"I protest in the name of the Queen!" the same man cried sharply, while his fellows raised a murmur so that the priest's voice was drowned. Sir Anthony stepped into the aisle, his face inflamed with anger. The interruption taking place there, in that place, seemed to him a double profanation. "Who is that brawler?" he said, his hand trembling on his staff; and all the old dames trembled too. "Let him stand out." The sheriff's spokesman was so concealed by his fellows that he could not be seen; but he answered civilly enough. "I am no brawler," he said. "I only require the law to be observed; and that you know, sir. I am here on behalf of the sheriff; and I warn all present that a continuation of this service will expose them to grievous pains and penalties. If you desire it, I will read the royal order to prove that I do not speak without warrant." "Begone, knave, you and your fellows!" Sir Anthony cried. A loyal man in all else, and the last to deny the queen's right or title, he had no reasonable answer to give, and could only bluster. "Begone, do you hear?" he repeated; and he rapped his staff on the pavement, and then, raising it, pointed to the door. All Coton thought the men must go; but the men, perhaps, because they were Clopton, did not go. And Sir Anthony had not so completely lost his head as to proceed to extremities except in the last resort. Affecting to consider the incident at an end, he stepped back into his pew without waiting to see whether the man obeyed him or no, and resumed his devotions. Father Carey, at a nod from him, went on with the interrupted service. But again the priest had barely read a dozen lines before the same man made the congregation start by crying loudly, "Stop!" "Go on!" shouted Sir Anthony in a voice of thunder. "At your peril!" retorted the intervener. "Go on!" from Sir Anthony again. Father Carey stood silent, trembling and looking from one to the other. Many a priest of his faith would have risen on the storm and in the spirit of Hildebrand hurled his church's curse at the intruder. But the Father was not of these, and he hesitated, fumbling with his surplice with his feeble white hands. He feared as much for his patron as for himself; and it was on the knight that his eyes finally rested. But Sir Anthony's brow was black; he got no comfort there. So the Father took courage and a long breath, opened his mouth and read on, amid the hush of suppressed excitement, and of such anger and stealthy defiance as surely English church had never seen before. As he read, however, he gathered courage, and his voice strength. The solemn words, so ancient, so familiar, fell on the stillness of the church, and awed even the sheriff's men. To the surprise of nearly every one, there was no further interruption; the service ended quietly.