Cokernuts 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 leading an extremely out-of-tune rendering of "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Immediately he saw the approaching forces of Mammon, as he called them, he climbed down from his post of vantage and secured the hose.
The police and the retainers from the Castle approached the carriage to remove it and thus gain entrance to the meadow. Led by the red-faced superintendent from Ryford, they presented an imposing array. Allowing them to approach quite close, McFie suddenly gave the signal for the water to be turned on. He had taken the precaution to post men at the hydrant to protect it.
The superintendent's legs flew up into the air as the jet of water caught him beneath the chin. In a few seconds the attacking party had been hosed into a gasping, choking, and struggling heap. Cokernuts, wooden balls, sticks, bits of chairs, glasses and crockery rained upon them.
The forces of Mammon gathered themselves together and retired in disorder. Andrew McFie's blood was up. Victory was at hand. In his excitement he committed the tactical blunder of causing the carriage to be removed, that he might charge the enemy and complete its discomfiture. His followers, however, had too long been accustomed to regard the police with awe, and most of the men, fearful of being recognised, sneaked through holes in the hedges, and made their way home by circuitous routes.
Those who remained, together with a number of girls and women, fought until they were overpowered and captured, and the Barton Bridge Temperance Fête came to an inglorious end.
That same evening, having laden the van with such of the property and tents as had not been utilised for bonfires and missiles, Bindle took his seat on the tail-board, and the van lumbered off in the direction of London.
He proceeded to review the events of the day. What particularly diverted him was the recollection of the way in which horses and vehicles had been mixed up.