“They had no explanation to offer except lightning, and it was manifest they had no real belief in that. I suggested boys, but was told there was but one about the farm--even as I made the suggestion I knew it was futile; but what would you? “I asked when the calamity occurred, and they told me in full daytime between dawn and lunch. In the morning all had been well in the orchard--by noon two trees half ruined, and no one had seen sight of smoke or flame, nor sound. “The suggestion of ‘owl blasting’ brought no response. They were strangers to the country, having come some ten years ago from Swansea way. “‘It’s the hills,’ said the woman. “‘Well,’ said I, ‘another watcher will do no harm. Can you give me a shakedown, and to-morrow I will go out with my easel and stay sketching the orchard.’ “She assented without enthusiasm, and I spent that night at the farm. “The farmer was no wiser and rather surlier than his wife, but both were manifestly oppressed with fear. Their boy alone was cheerful and unmoved. “The next day I rose at cock-crow, passed through the orchard and out on to the hills to a patch of rock and heather some two hundred yards away. “By seven o’clock I had watched in a good stretch of the farm and the orchard in which not a soul had moved. All at once, I stood with my brush poised in amazement, as there high above the trees was poised a small, blue-yellow lambent flame that seemed to drift sideways in the windless air. “For a moment I thought it was a fire balloon, then saw my error. Without a thought I ran toward it just in time to see it settle down on to a tree whose leaves in a moment turned from green to darkening brown and burst almost immediately into crackling flame. My cries brought out the boy and the woman from the house and on their coming it vanished and we were left gazing at the damage it had done. “I told them what I had seen, and the woman suddenly put her apron over her face and burst into tears. We sent the boy to fetch her husband, who came in a marked state of worry and agitation. “I could not follow the quick interchange of Welsh words that ensued. The man then asked me who had told me of ‘owl blasting,’ and together we went to the village to find the old man. “It appeared that a month or so back the farmer had used some old rocks which were part of the ring of a Cromlech to rebuild one of his stone walls. This, according to the old man, had brought down the ‘owl blasting’ upon him. “Painstakingly they dragged the stones back to their original place, and I believe certain ceremonial was gone through at the next quarter of the moon. “The precise things done were kept secret from me, for I was a stranger and suspect, but I gathered enough to understand that a mercenary destruction or disturbance of Druidic remains brought its own reward.