Fortunately the rest of the men had only gone a short way.

They were back almost directly, and everybody set to work to make a wide ring of bare land round the farm.

They cut down trees, and threw up earth, and burnt a great patch of grass, and we children helped too for all we were worth.
We were only just in time.

We could see the great cloud of smoke coming down the valley, and as it grew nearer we heard the roaring or the fire.
It seemed to bear down on us suddenly in a great burning sheet.

For a moment or two the air was so hot that we could scarcely breathe, then the flame struck our ring of bare land, and parted in two and passed on either side of us, leaving the farm as an island.