It was a real battle with defences and sallies. The supporters of the Inclosure miraculously knotted together, and formed a guard for the labourers, who with hammers ready alternately for nail or head, bent to their work. They had no personal concern in the matter, but they resented being meddled with. The Squire's party was much the weakest in numbers, but luck had given it the best weapons of that chance armament. Alce of Ellenwhorne had a fine knobbed stick, worth a dozen of the enemy's, while Lewnes of Coldblow had an excellent broken bottle. Young Elphee had been through the bruiser-mill, and routed his assailants with successive upper-cuts. The anti-Bardonites, on the other hand, were inclined to waste their strength; they fought in a congested, rabblesome way; also they threw their bottles, not realising that a bottle is much better as a club than a missile. The result was that quite early in the conflict their ammunition gave out, and they were reduced to sticks and fists. This made the two parties fairly equal, and the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. Now a bit of fence was put up, then it was torn down again; now it looked as if the fence-builders were going to be swept off the Moor, then it looked as if their posts were going to straggle up to Totease. The Fair was quite deserted, the tenants of Socknersh and Totease climbed to their windows. Someone fetched the constable from Peasmarsh, but after surveying the battlefield from a distance he strategically retired. At Flightshot Manor the Squire was troubled. The Inclosure of Boarzell had been no piece of land-grabbing on his part, but a move for the good of his estate. He had always wanted to improve his tenants' condition, but had been thwarted by lack of means. He wondered if he ought to give orders to stop the fence-building. "Sir, that would be folly!" cried his son. "But it seems that there's a regular riot going on--quite a number of people have been hurt, and two ploughlands trodden up. Kadwell went over, but says he can do nothing." "Send to Rye, then. Let 'em swear in some special constables, and drive the fellows off. But as for stopping the work--that would be to play into their hands." So the fight raged on, the Battle of Boarzell. Unfortunately it did not rage on Boarzell itself, but on its fruitful fringe, where the great ploughfields lapped up to the base of the Moor, taking the sunset on their wet brown ridges. Poor Ginner's winter wheat was all pulped and churned to ruin, and the same doom fell on Ditch's roots. Sometimes it seemed as if the Squire's men would attain their object, for the fence--very tottery and uncertain, it must be confessed--had wound a bit of the way past Totease towards Odiam. Dusk had fallen, but the men still worked, for their blood was up.