The moment he saw this John Willie was out of bed. Then, within thirty seconds, he had plunged into his jersey, tucked his nightgown hastily into his knickers, and, making as little noise as possible, had tiptoed down the stairs and out of the cottage.
The bright glow over the sandhills guided him, and he ran as fast as he could through the muffling sand. The continuous cracks were like pistols, and a deep roaring could be heard, which became louder. Then, mounting a hillock, John Willie saw the beautiful blaze. It was as high as a cottage, and the twisting, upstreaming column of sparks above it rose fifty feet into the night. It illumined the sandhills far and wide. The Baptist Chapel and schoolhouse looked as if they were cut out of red cardboard against the night. Even the zinc ventilators of the Independent Chapel, down by the sea, showed faintly. Then all became grey again as a dozen fresh stakes were piled on. By the time John Willie Garden got there these too had caught, with volleys of cracks. Every man in Llanyglo was there, and, farther off, groups of women also. The heat was intense, so that the men and lads who ran in to throw back half-consumed ends did so with their faces averted.
"Why didn't you tell me?" said John Willie to Dafydd Dafis reproachfully.
Dafydd was watching this beautiful Red Dragon of a flame that was burning Saxon stakes. His eyes blinked rapidly. Then he leant over John Willie, and his forefinger tapped two or three times on the boy's heart.
"You wass tell me you go to bed," he whispered. "You wass tell me that, at ten o'clock, at John Pritchard's. There iss two men over there——" suddenly he straightened himself again and pointed, "—you can tell them the same whatever."
A hundred and fifty yards away two men watched. They were the men from Porth Neigr who had set up the fences. They put up at a wayside cottage two miles away, and probably they were not surprised at what was happening. They did not approach any nearer.
Then there was a call of "John Willie!" and Mrs. Garden's terrified face could be seen in the outer ring of light. John Willie was haled off, in a rage that was nearer to tears than he would have admitted.
Four days later summonses were served on Dafydd Dafis and two other men.
The serving of those summonses had an instant and very remarkable effect. This effect was, that three of the inhabitants of Llanyglo straightway lost all recollection of the English language. And not only did they, the summoned ones, lose it, but every witness called from Llanyglo fell into an ignorance as blank. This happened at Sessions, before Squire Wynne himself, who, in the days before this visitation of forgetfulness, had talked English to all of them. The gloomy magistrates' Court opposite Porth Neigr railway station was crowded. Terry Armfield, at whose instance the summonses had been issued, thought he had never seen such a set of pigjobbers as stood against the perspiring walls or sat with their chins on their outspread forearms, their caps in their hands or in the pockets of their corduroys. The two men who had put up the fences sat in the well of the Court. They were brothers, and their name was Kerr. The skylight shone on the baldish head of the elder of them, and both had given their evidence in a strong Lancashire accent. They had been watching on the sandhills, they said, expecting something of the sort, and knew that it had taken place at exactly ten o'clock, because they had both looked at their watches....
So "Dim Saesneg," said man after man; and the Squire could only make dots with his pen on the blotting-paper before him, keep his eyes from Terry Armfield, and call for an interpreter.