"Oes genych chi dystion?"
"R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden."
("He says he can call the son of the man who is building a house there, sir.") ...
And so it went on, hour after hour, with the English evidence likewise translated for the benefit of the defendants. At the end of the first day the case was adjourned, but it came on again on the morrow, and again on the day after that. It began to dam all other business. As a block in traffic causes an accumulation behind, so other cases began to collect—drunks, dog-licences, drivings without lights, and innumerable other petty disputes. There was no question that the fences had been burned; the only question was whether they had got hold of the right men. The Bench could not understand the obstinacy with which the two Lancashire witnesses persisted that the outrage had occurred at exactly ten o'clock.
"But mightn't it have been half-past ten, or eleven, or even half-past eleven?" they were asked again and again.
"Ah, it might," they admitted open-mindedly. "But it wasn't," they added unshakably.
Dafydd Dafis wanted to know what they said.
"Oh, translate it," the Squire sighed, and for the fortieth time it was translated.
"R'oeddwn efo John Willie Garden," said Dafydd once more....
And that was great glory for John Willie, for he was called, asked whether he knew the nature of an oath, was sworn, and raised a general laugh by varying the formula with which the Court was not so drearily familiar, and saying, in Welsh, "Dim Cymraeg." He stood to it that at ten o'clock Dafydd Dafis had been talking to him by Pritchard's manure-heap.