John Pritchard had sat down on one of the yellow chairs with his knees a yard apart. His brows seemed knitted.
"But there is noth-thing for them to do here," he said. "No work, no wages—only building fences."
"Perhaps they have lot of money. Their bacon smell very good, whatever."
"They finiss their breakfast—I heard them wipe the frying-pan out as plain as if I see it with my eyes!"
Again John Pritchard's heavy voice: "Finiss their breakfast indeed! They finiss a whole barrel of beer!"
"And it is right what Hugh Morgan says," another struck in. "That Ned Kerr, he know Wales as well as I know my two hands! I have let-ter from my cousin Thomas Thomas in Towyn, and he say they buy lot-t of alders up the Dysynni two years ago of Mr. Llewelyn Jones of Abergynolwyn, and set up a hut in the 'ood, and make their clog soles, and pay six-pence a foot for the trees."
"He set up more than a hut at Llanyglo, whatever!"
"Indeed they do no such thing! The Hafod Unos belong to the old days. There iss no new Hafod Unos I don't know this how many years!"
"All the old things was new things once, Hugh Morgan."
Then, as if all at once they saw anew that house so magically sprung up out of the sand, there fell a silence. Howell Gruffydd might make his jests about taking a larger shop and forming a Limited Company, but the hard fact remained, that aliens had squatted down at Llanyglo while they had slept, and, by force or process of law, might be difficult to turn out again. Howell's jocosity subsided; among the children's forms and benches they took counsel together; and when, at half-past ten, John Pritchard's eldest lad came in with the news that one of the Kerrs had departed along the Porth Neigr road, while the other three kept guard over what they had won, they drew closer together still, and spoke in low tones of boycott.