They flowed through Playden like a torrent through an open sluice, sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsamvillagers from cottage doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies from Iden Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed, till all was one steaming and shouting blackness.
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 fencevery tottery and uncertain, it must be confessedhad wound a bit of the way past Totease towards Odiam. Dusk had fallen, but the men still worked, for their blood was up.In spite of the farm's new activities, he found that he could still manage without engaging fresh labour. The odds and ends of work which his boys took off him and[Pg 123] Beatup left them free to attack the bigger enterprises. And as Odiam grew the children would grow. Even now they were all impressed for service, except little George, who was delicate and, moreover, subject to fits. Their work was variedthey scared birds from the crops, fed the poultry, collected the eggs, drove the cows to and from pasture, fed the pigs, ran errands to the neighbouring farms. In course of time Albert learned milking, and could saddle old Crump the roan, or put him into the gig.The dusk was falling now, splashed by crude flares over the stalls, and once more that creepdelicious, tingling, suffocatingwas in her heart, the intoxication of the weak by the strong. It seemed as if he were holding her closer. She grew warm, and yet she would not stop. There was sweat on her forehead, she felt her woollen gown sticking to her shouldersbut she would not rest. The same old tune jigged onit was good to dance to, and Harry liked playing it."Noit would cost money."
