"Or this," bellowed Sir John, and, lifting the tightly rolled umbrella he carried, he struck Godfrey with all his strength upon the side of the head.
Godfrey staggered, but fortunately the soft hat he was wearing, upon the brim of which the stroke fell, broke its weight to some extent, so that he was not really hurt. Only now he went quite mad in a kind of icy way, and, springing at Sir John with the lightness of a leopard, dealt him two blows, one with his left hand and the next with his right.
They were good, straight blows, for boxing had been his favourite amusement at Sandhurst where he was a middleweight champion. The first caught Sir John upon his thick lips which were badly cut against the teeth, causing him to stagger; while the second, that with the right, landed on the bridge of his nose and blacked both his eyes. This, so strong and heavy was it, notwithstanding Sir John's great weight, knocked him clean off his feet. Back he went, and in his efforts to save himself gripped Mr. Knight with one hand and with the other the legs of the early Victorian angel that surmounted Lady Jane's grave against which they were standing. Neither of these could withstand the strain. The angel, which was only pinned by lead-coated rivets to its base and the column behind, flew from its supports, as did Mr. Knight from his, so that in another second, the men having tripped against the surround of the grave, all three rolled upon the path, the marble luckily falling clear of both of them.
"Now I've done it," said Godfrey in a reflective voice as he contemplated the tangled ruin.
"Yes," exclaimed Isobel, "I think you have."
Then they remained grim and silent while the pair, who were not really much injured, picked themselves up with groans.
"I am sorry that I knocked you down, since I am young and you are not," said Godfrey, "but I repeat that you are a liar," he added by an afterthought.
Sir John spat out a tooth, and began to mop the blood from his nose with a silk pocket-handkerchief.
"Oh! you do, do you?" he said in a somewhat subdued voice. "Well, you'll find out that I'm other things too before I'm done with you. And I repeat that you are fortune-hunting young rascal and that I would rather see my daughter dead than married to you."
"And I say, Godfrey, I would rather see you dead than married to her!" broke in Mr. Knight, spitting out his words like an angry cat.