Death took a hand that winter in Llanyglo's making. They were getting well up with the Town Hall, in what is now Gardd Street; still the flag floated at the polehead, in token that they had got thus far without serious mishap; and then it had to be run down to the half-mast. It was a common scaffold accident. Harry Kerr, on one of the upper stages, stepped back upon empty air; Sam sprang forward to save him; and they picked them both up from among the debris below. A few remembered the launching of that open boat on that wild night seven years before, and said that it seemed out of nature that these comparatively young men should go off before ancient Mrs. Pritchard; and Mrs. Pritchard herself baa-ed, and said that there would be more room now in the Hafod Unos whatever. But most of the residents were new-comers now, who knew more of Tommy Kerr's present delinquencies than of the history of his brothers, and they could hardly be expected to grieve. They buried them both at Sarn, under the shadow of that pepper-caster of a fifteenth-century church tower, and the problem of however the Hafod had held them all became a thing of the past.

The Town Hall was the outward and visible sign that Llanyglo had not only caught up with Porth Neigr, but had outstripped it. It had special conveniences for a centre of administration, which it forthwith became; and at the election that Autumn Howell Gruffydd was made a Councillor. He had two branch shops now, one at Porth Neigr and the other at Sarn, and to his newspaper counter he had added a Library of books bought at Mudies' clearance sales. He charged fourpence a week for the loan of each book, which was twopence more than the old stationer's library at Porth Neigr had charged; but there was the railway-fare to take into account if you considered the charge extortionate. Later, a good deal later, when the picture postcard was invented, Howell did rather well out of that too. He praised your amateur snapshot of the Trwyn or the Promenade of the faÇade of the Town Hall, and made you what no doubt seemed to him a fair offer; namely to give you a dozen prints in exchange for your film. He then proceeded to fill a revolving stand with other prints, which he sold at seven for sixpence, or, highly glazed, at twopence apiece. With pennies and twopences accumulated in this and similar ways he bought certain house-property behind Ham-and-Egg Terrace, paying a ground-rent to Edward Garden. He had by this time acquired a little personal habit of Mr. Tudor Williams's—the habit of shaking hands with one hand, while the other affectionately kneaded and patted his interlocutor's right arm from the wrist up to the shoulder.

Hitherto the developments of Llanyglo had lain in a few hands only—the hands of Edward Garden and his shareholders, of one or two others who had forgotten they had a holding in Terry Armfield's Thelema, but remember it now with joy and thanksgiving, of Mr. Tudor Williams, and of not very many more. But now a more ponderous machine began to rumble into motion. This was the machine of which the Railway Companies and a couple of Pleasure Packet Services were the visible active parts. Rumours now began to fly about of developments long since planned and now imminent, developments astounding and gigantic. These rumours began with hotels. Hitherto the "Cambrian" had been thought to be rather more than so-so, but of course nobody would have dreamed of comparing it with the "Grands" and "Majesties" which "Lancashire Hotels, Limited" possessed in the great centres of the North. These had half a dozen tennis-courts in front, palm-courts and winter-gardens behind, and five and six and seven hundred bedrooms. But now the rumour ran that, not one of these, but two, owned by opposing Syndicates, were to be set up in Llanyglo. The sites on which they were to be built varied according to the version of the tale. Some said that the "Montgomery" was to be pulled down again, some that the whole row of fishermen's cottages was to be demolished, some that a terrace was to be dug out of the side of the Trwyn itself and a funicular railway constructed. However it might be, it was known that there were prolonged meetings of the Council about it, and that at one point the whole thing, whatever it might be, seemed likely to fall through. And that, as they now knew, would be their death-blow. They would do anything, anything rather than that these immense reservoirs of capital, already partly opened, should be shut up again. They would hold out the town itself as security, a twopenny rate, promises, accommodations, anything. It was said that Sheard, the Porth Neigr solicitor, who had moved to new premises opposite the Llanyglo Town Hall, sat up five nights in the week, making actuarial calculations, estimating yields, measuring margins, and balancing all with the possibility of the town's bankruptcy. Edward Garden was once more at Llanyglo, and closeted frequently with Mr. Tudor Williams and Howell Gruffydd.... Even the two projected hotels were not much more than a detail as matters now stood; the whole town must now be given a tremendous upward heave or collapse with a crash. Even those hotels could go up now only on one condition—namely, that the base of the visiting population, that foundation of which innumerable units are the strength, should at once be immensely broadened. For every individual who could afford to put up at a palace, they must rake in scores, hundreds of people who could not. The real foundation of the hotels must be row on row, acre on acre, of Ham-and-Egg Terraces. For the rest, a place that must live through the year on the takings of three months must be big, as those places of entertainment must be big that are full on Saturdays only and empty during the rest of the week. Nothing smaller would tempt the Railway Companies. (This, by the way, was not altogether good news for Raymond Briggs. Architecture is not needed for that broadened base. Any working master-builder can run up houses that are good enough. The pattern of one is the pattern of all, and Raymond would have small chance in competition with the bigger men of his profession.)

Nor would it suffice merely to house and feed the people who came. Other watering-places were awake to the new menace now, so that the rival announcements on the hoardings resembled a desperate grapple for the possession of those sixpences and shillings and half-crowns that were poured without ceasing into the coffers of the Holiday Clubs. Not one in five hundred of those who contributed those shillings and half-crowns stopped to think that Wales herself has no Holiday Clubs—that Wales does not go abroad with a year's savings in her pocket of which it is black shame to bring as much as a single penny back again. They wanted amusement. The Resort or Spa that could provide the most amusement would get the lion's share. Amusements were a more urgent necessity than chairs and tables and roofs.

So it was that, between this place and that, the people who intended to have a better time than their fathers had had were in some danger of being pampered.

The project for the Llanyglo Big Wheel was set a-going.

The promise that Howell Gruffydd had made behind his hand to John Pritchard had already begun to be redeemed. The Town Hall was not three months old before a Grand Bazaar was held there in aid of the Llanyglo Joint Chapels. On the first of the four days during which the Bazaar lasted the proceedings were opened by Tudor Williams, Esquire, M.P. On the second day they were opened by Edward Garden, Esquire. On the third Mrs. Howell Gruffydd opened them, in heliotrope satin; and on the fourth day Raymond Briggs, Esquire, who scented Chapel-building in the air, performed the ceremony. Raymond guessed that at least three new Chapels were certain presently to go up in the stead of those buildings of tin and boards and sickly blue paint that had so outraged Terry Armfield's Oxford Movement susceptibilities. As a matter of fact, five went up, and have debts on them to this day, in spite of the long series of Bazaars, two a season at least, at which the Saxon veins were opened.... For the money poured in. It rained into the square collecting-sheets that were placed at intervals along all the principal streets. It clattered into the slots of the wooden boxes that were rattled under the nose of the passer-by. It was minted in the Bran Tubs from which, paying your threepence, you drew forth a penny toy. It multiplied with every flower Miss Nancy Pritchard, with twenty other young women in Welsh national costume, sold. It made heavy the pockets of the stall-holders, who had never any change. It made little cylinders of silver and copper, three and four and five inches high, on the tables folk had to pass before they were admitted to the Concerts.... Believe it, the Chapel-goers of Llanyglo, seeing all that money to be had for little more than the asking, opened their eyes, and sat up, and took notice. If this was the Saxon invasion, why had they not welcomed it long ago? A few bales of hired bunting, a few pounds for evergreens and velvet banners with texts on them, a few paid assistants and a not unreasonable printers' bill, and—these splendid results!

As big as John Pritchard himself said, putting on his spectacles to see whether the astonishing total could really be true, "They must be very rit-ss, whatever!"

But the Bazaars had not this golden harvest to themselves. They found competition, which they a little resented. Secular amusements more than held their own. Gigantic castings had begun to arrive for the Big Wheel; under the booth-awnings of Gardd Street (recently christened) penny articles could be had for a penny; and a long row of automatic machines—Wheels of Fortune, little iron men who kicked footballs, Sibyls of Fate and Try-your-Grip machines—had sprung up along the railings of the sea-front. A few stage-gipsies with green parrakeets had made the town their summer home. There was a rifle-range on the farther sandhills—you could hear the "plunk" of the bullets on the iron targets. Near it was a travelling Merry-go-Round. Photographers had their "pitches" on the sands, with humourous canvas flats with oval holes in them, through which you put your face, so that you could have your portrait taken as "He Won't be Happy till He Gets It" or in the act of embracing a two-dimensional young woman, whichever was to your liking. And there were niggers. These danced and sang and played the banjo on a raised platform, dressed in wide turned-down schoolboy collars and pink striped trousers; the concentric rings of green chairs about them resembled the spread of a large symmetrical thistle plant; and outside this ring one or other of the troupe constantly moved, shaking a sort of jellybag under your nose (as the Chapel-goers had shaken the collecting-boxes) and blinking the pink lids in his burnt-cork face. A little farther on was the men's bathing-place. They had wooden machines now, into which youths entered four at a time—no more the trim and private striped tents of the Laceys and the Raymond Briggses. The ladies' bathing-place was farther on still—a boat stood off between the two lest the sexes should not keep their distance. And a hundred yards past that, beyond a great scabrous groyne of loose stone, clay-coloured at the shore end but slimy with green as it ran down to the sea, with red flags and notice-boards along the top and a moveable rope-barrier at its base where two men walked on sentry-go, they were at work upon the Pier.

By this time there was one question which, more than others, was beginning to disturb Llanyglo. This was the question of drink. In the old days, when the old brown horse who had walked as carefully as if he had had a spirit-level inside him had first brought the Gardens and their luggage so softly over the sandhills, there had been no inn nearer than Porth Neigr. Save on market-days, scarce a drop of alcohol passed a Llanyglo man's lips from year's end to year's end. If John Pritchard had preached occasionally against drunkenness, it had been conventionally only, with little more bearing on Llanyglo's own habits than if he had preached against cannibalism. Then Railhead had crawled across the land; Howell Gruffydd had found it necessary to warn the young against contamination; and with the building of the "Cambrian" had come Llanyglo's first licence.

But for long enough after that there had been no public-houses. The travelling army of labourers had had their own canteens, and even when a necessary beer-licence or two had been applied for at Sessions, the applications had been granted as it were behind the hand, and the affair had been got over as quickly as possible. No: Tommy Kerr's unconscious soft carolling of Glan Meddwdod Mwyn as he had crossed the sandhills on that torrid Sunday afternoon had held no real personal reproach for Llanyglo. For Porth Neigr, perhaps yes; for other places, yes; but not for Llanyglo.

But since then things had changed. Things had changed since they had been able to tell themselves that what went on in the "Cambrian" lounge was no concern of theirs. They had begun to change when Llanyglo had been no longer able to shut its eyes to the beer-drinking of the navvies and bricklayers and the brothers Kerr. Then for a time a convenient connection had been established between drunkenness and rough trousers tied about the knees with string. For cases such as these, the little Station at the extreme end of Gardd Street, with "Police" over the door and geraniums in the windows, had ample powers. The half-dozen constables must exercise discretion, that was all.

But it became a not uncommon sight to see a tipsy reveller singing himself unsteadily home on one side of the street, while the officer, watching him from the other side, stood questioning his discretion until the delinquent had passed out of sight. For a time Tommy Kerr, who had been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little permanent help. It began to be seen that the real problem was, that if they would get folk with money to spend into the town, they must accept these folk, within reason, as they were, tipplers and teetotalers alike. For some reason or other, convivial drinking also seemed to come under the head of amusements. Blackpool provided liquor; Douglas was in an exceptional position for the provision of liquor; and more and more it appeared that Llanyglo must open the Bazaar doors with one hand and the doors of inns and taverns with the other.

Meanwhile, the "Lancashire Rose," on one side of Gardd Street, and the "Trafford" on the other, were quickly becoming notorious. These were both fully licenced houses, with Tap and Saloon entrances, and it was idle to pretend to think that all the scandal originated in the humbler compartments. Heady young men with full pockets, respectable fathers of families, and others whom they could by no means lock up as they could lock up Tommy Kerr, went into these places in broad daylight, sometimes coming out again obviously affected: and it was almost certain that not all their stomachs were so innocent and unaccustomed that a single glass of the poison had produced this result. Dolefully they wished that a sober Lancashire would come to Llanyglo; but—a Lancashire of some sort they must have. Why else were they doing all they could to win its favour? What else was their Big Wheel for, of which four mammoth standards of plate and lattice-girder had already risen thirty feet above the sandhills, where they were stepped and anchored into the oldest rocks of earth? Why else were they toiling day and night at their Pier, and at the building, section by section, of the sea-wall? Why else were they setting up gasometers beyond Pritchard's, and discussing a Sewage Scheme, and—most urgent of all—gnawing their fingers anxiously until some arrangement should be come to with Edward Garden's lawyers about that water far away up Delyn? The supply was becoming terrifyingly insufficient. For want of mere water the growth of the town might come to a stop as plants shrivel and fall again in an arid bed.... And, save to get Lancashire folk there, drunk or sober, why did they solemnly discuss this inanity of an amusement or that—Big Wheels and Switchbacks, Scenic Railways, Toboggan Slides, Panoramas, Fat Women, Dancing Halls, Floral Valleys and Concerts and Town Bands? There was no going back now. They had spent money that they would never, never see again if they persisted in being visionaries in business and irreconcilables on mere minor points of demeanour....

"They spend more when they are ... like that," said Howell Gruffydd one day to the Council assembled. He said it a little shamefacedly, his fingers fiddling with the green cloth of the Council-table.

Nobody spoke.

"I—saw—a—man," Howell continued, "a respectable man, with good clothes on his back and a new hat, all spoiled—it was a pity to see it—I saw him knock over row of bot-tles at John Parry's in Gardd Street, just for amusement, and he laugh, and say 'How mut-ss?' like it wass noth-thing, he was so-a drunk——"

"It is a pit-ty they make such a noise sometimes," somebody said, in a curiously aggrieved voice....

Evan Pugh, the landlord of the "Trafford," was of precisely the same opinion.

They escaped their dilemma by means of a noteworthy bit of government by minority. There was a small section of the Council, easily outvotable at ordinary times, which urged that, after all, things were as they were, that you must live and let live in this world, and that even good things could be pushed to extremes when they became no longer good. And, as these began to speak, one stern bazaar-promoter after another began to look at his watch and to mutter "Dear me—I had no idea it wass so late—indeed I not catss him if I not go now——"

They left.

This, or else a tactful absenteeism, became their custom whenever licencing matters came up to be discussed.

But cases of conscience are cases of conscience all the world over.

The sum that Edward Garden proposed as a fair price for that catchment-area up Delyn was two hundred thousand pounds—this for about two thousand acres; and on the day when his lawyers named the figure it was a wonder that the whole Council did not take in a body to their beds. Two hundred thousand pounds! They could not believe their ears. Nor could they believe their eyes either when they got it in writing, words first, and the figures in brackets afterwards. If they had written the single word "Fancy!" across that document and sent it straightway back to the lawyers they would no doubt have followed their first impulse; but somebody, less hard hit in the wind than the rest, managed to gasp out the proposal that they should sleep on it, and sleep on it they did. But the night did not alter it. In the morning it was still two hundred thousand pounds (£200,000).

News of the rapacity of the demand had leaked out almost immediately. Ordinarily, anybody who had stopped Howell Gruffydd in the street and had asked him a Council secret would have been met with the smiling facer he deserved, but this was extraordinary altogether. On the morning after they had slept on it, William Morgan saw Howell on the Promenade, came up to him, and, making no bones about it whatever, asked him whether it was true.

"Who told you, William Morgan?" Howell began ... but he really had not the heart to go on. He took off his hat, wiped the lining of it with his handkerchief, and the bright sunlight showed his brows lined with anxiety and sick fear, crumpled and embossed like one of his own pats of butter. He replaced his hat and blew his nose violently.

"Is it true?" demanded William Morgan again.

Howell became grim.—"It was an e-vil day for this town when that man came here," he said, forgetting how little town there had been when that old brown horse had first brought the Gardens softly jolting across the sandhills.

"Then it is true?" said William Morgan once again.

"It is true that a man sometimes asks one thing, and finiss by getting something very diff-ferent from what he ask," Howell replied, and walked abruptly away.

He crossed the Promenade and turned into Pontnewydd Street. There he stood, irresolutely plucking his lip and gazing into a stationer's window. Dafydd Dafis's voice in his ear caused him to start almost violently.

"H-what is this, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd demanded without preface, his eyes burningly and truculently on the Chairman's face. He wore his everyday corduroys, but his air was that of a monarch in banishment. Howell turned.

"Ah, how are you, Dafydd? Indeed you look well! They do say the smell of road-tar is a very healthy smell——"

"H-what is this we hear, Howell Gruffydd?" Dafydd repeated.

Howell tried to smile.—"Indeed, how can I answer a question like that, 'What is this we hear?'——"

"H-what is this about Delyn and the Water?"

There was a dangerous quickness in Dafydd's voice. Involuntarily Howell gave a little hiccough of emotion, which answered Dafydd sufficiently. His eyes were like the windows of a burning house.

"He sell us two thousand acres, of our own land, for how mut-ss?"

"Two—hundred—thou-sand—pounds," sobbed Howell.

"Of our own mountains—Delyn, that belong to us—he sell us Delyn, this Saxon?——"

"Indeed, indeed, Dafydd, do not excite yourself—it will have to go to arbi-tra-tion——"

"It will go to Hell, with his soul!" Dafydd replied fiercely. "He sell us Delyn—he sell us Delyn water—he sell us our own moun-tains!—It iss not for this we make you Chairman of the Council, Howell Gruffydd!"

Howell trembled, but put up a soothing hand.

"Aw-w-w, you wait and see, Dafydd Dafis! A prof-fit is a prof-fit, but this is wick-ed, and preposterous, and out of all reason! You wait and see! We have a meeting this morning, and p'rapss we show Mister Edward Garden he is not so clever as he think he is! He think he put his Saxon pistol to our heads like this? Indeed he make a great mistake! You wait and see, Dafydd. There iss a saying, 'He laughs best who laughs last'—you wait and see!" He patted Dafydd's shoulder and arm reassuringly, and perhaps felt heartened by his own words. "You wait and see!" he said once more, almost cheerily now. "We not pay it—never fear! I see you later——"

And he hurried away, leaving Dafydd standing on the pavement.

But the Council Meeting that morning settled nothing, and neither did the next Meeting nor the next after that. They wrote to Mr. Tudor Williams, but it almost looked as if Mr. Tudor Williams was taking a leaf out of their own book: if they had pressing private affairs when questions of ales and wines and spirits appeared on the agenda, so Mr. Tudor Williams pleaded a multiplicity of urgent engagements now that it was a question of water. The meeting adjourned, reassembled, adjourned again, and met again. Days passed, weeks passed. Legal opinions were taken, but no action. They fetched Mr. Tudor Williams down almost by force, and he proffered his good offices, but deprecated the serving of notices of compulsory arbitration. He advised an amicable settlement if one could possibly be arrived at. Llanyglo's anger died away, and blank despair began to take its place.

Then one day Edward Garden's lawyers hinted that in the event of an arrangement being come to within a given time they were in a position to enter into certain pledges on behalf of the Railway Companies. They hinted also that they were equally in a position to do the other thing. Surely, they said, Llanyglo saw that this was a matter of its life or its death; and surely, they added, it was plain that it would not really be they who were paying! Nothing of the sort! Lancashire would pay. Yorkshire would pay. The Midlands would help to pay, and perhaps also the West and South. Whoever footed his bill at hotel or boarding-establishment would be contributing—they must see that he did contribute—his portion. What though visitors grumbled and talked about extortion? They forgot all about it the next day. What though residents groaned under the burden of the rates? They must submit to conditions, like everybody else. Llanyglo must pay, and pass it on.

In short, all the people who intended to have a better time than their fathers had had were to be shaven and shorn exactly as their fathers had been.

Llanyglo saw it, sighed, and acquiesced. There was nothing else to do.

And if Parry, of the "Lancashire Rose," or Pugh, of the "Trafford," reaped too rich a harvest by making people drunk, they must be assessed higher and higher still, and still higher, that was all.