CHAPTER VII.
A week or two had passed.
The Squire was on his way to inspect his main preparations for the battle at the park gates, which he expected on the morrow.

He had been out before breakfast that morning, on horseback, with one of the gardeners, to see that all the gates on the estate, except the Chetworth gate, were locked and padlocked.

For the Chetworth gate, which adjoined the land to be attacked, more serious defences were in progress.
All his attempts to embarrass the action of the Committee had been so far vain.

The alternatives he had proposed had been refused.
Fifty acres at the Chetworth end of Mannering Park, besides goodly slices elsewhere, the County Committee meant to have.

As the Squire would not plough them himself, and as the season was advancing, he had been peremptorily informed that the motor plough belonging to the County Committee would be sent over on such a day, with so many men, to do the work; the land had been surveyed; no damage would be done to the normal state of the property that could be avoided; et cetera.
So the crisis was at hand.