The still dawn--no birds were singing there--was suddenly full of a
tumultuous crackling; a little dull red flame ran about the base of the
pyre, changed to blue upon the ground, and set out to clamber, leaf by
leaf, up the stem of a giant nettle. A singing sound mingled with the
crackling....

They snatched their guns from the corner of the Skinners' living-room,
and then every one was running. Cossar came after them with heavy
strides....

Then they were standing looking back at the Experimental Farm. It was
boiling up; the smoke and flames poured out like a crowd in a panic,
from doors and windows and from a thousand cracks and crevices in the
roof. Trust Cossar to build a fire! A great column of smoke, shot with
blood-red tongues and darting flashes, rushed up into the sky. It was
like some huge giant suddenly standing up, straining upward and abruptly
spreading his great arms out across the sky. It cast the night back upon
them, utterly hiding and obliterating the incandescence of the sun that
rose behind it. All Hickleybrow was soon aware of that stupendous pillar
of smoke, and came out upon the crest, in various _deshabille_, to watch
them coming.

Behind, like some fantastic fungus, this smoke pillar swayed and
fluctuated, up, up, into the sky--making the Downs seem low and all
other objects petty, and in the foreground, led by Cossar, the makers of
this mischief followed the path, eight little black figures coming
wearily, guns shouldered, across the meadow.

As Bensington looked back there came into his jaded brain, and echoed
there, a familiar formula. What was it? "You have lit to-day--? You have