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 coachman and footman to take their mistress home, he caused the carriage to be drawn into the meadow and placed across the gateway, thus forming a barricade. This done, he mounted upon the box and harangued the throng.

Cokemuts and the balls used at the shies, together with the Aunt Sally sticks, were collected and piled up near the gate, and every preparation made to hold the meadow against all comers. McFie succeeded in working his hearers into a state of religious frenzy. They danced and sang like mad creatures, ate and drank all that was left of the provisions and lemonade, made bonfires of the stalls and tables; in short, turned Lady Knob-Kerrick's meadow into a very reasonable representation of an inferno.

"There's a-goin' to be trouble over this 'ere little arternoon's doin's," murmured Bindle to himself, as he slipped through a hole in the hedge and made his way towards Barton Bridge, whither he had already been preceded by a number of the more pacific spirits. "The cops 'll be 'ere presently, or I don't know my own mother."

Bindle was right. Lady Knob-Kerrick had telephoned to Ryford, and the police were already on their way in three motor-cars.

At Barton Bridge they were reinforced by the two local constables and later by the men-servants from the Castle. When they arrived at the entrance to the meadow they found McFie