Gregory was the first to speak.
“Bruce, Bruce, did you see that? That was no ordinary fireball!”
“It was so big! What was it?”
“Perhaps our heavenly visitor has come at last!”
“Hey, Greg, it must have landed by your friend’s farmthe Grendon placemustn’t it?”
“You’re right! I must pay old Mr. Grendon a visit tomorrow and see if he or his family saw anything of this.”
They talked excitedly, stamping their feet as they exercised their lungs. Their conversation was the conversation of optimistic young men, and included much speculative matter that began “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if” or “Just supposing”
Then they stopped and laughed at their own absurd beliefs.
Fox said slyly, “So you’ll be seeing all the Grendon family tomorrow?”
“It seems probable, unless that red-hot planetary ship has already borne them off to a better world.”
“Tell us true, Gregyou really go to see that pretty Nancy Grendon, don’t you?”
Gregory struck his friend playfully on the shoulder.
“No need for your jealousy, Bruce! I go to see the father, not the daughter. Though the one is female, the other is progressive, and that must interest me more just yet. Nancy has beauty, true, but her fatherah, her father has electricity!”
Laughing, they cheerfully shook hands and parted for the night.
On Grendon’s farm, things were a deal less tranquil, as Gregory was to discover.
Gregory Rolles rose before seven next morning as was his custom. It was while he was lighting his gas mantle, and wishing Mr. Fenn (the baker in whose house Gregory lodged) would install electricity, that a swift train of thought led him to reflect again on the phenomenal thing in the previous night’s sky. He let his mind wander luxuriously over all the possibilities that the “meteor” illuminated. He decided that he would ride out to see Mr. Grendon within the hour.
He was lucky in being able, at this stage in his life, to please himself largely as to how his days were spent, for his father was a person of some substance. Edward Rolles had had the fortune, at the time of the Crimean War, to meet Escoffier, and with some help from the great chef had brought onto the market a baking powder, “Eugenol,” that, being slightly more palatable and less deleterious to the human system than its rivals, had achieved great commercial success. As a result, Gregory had attended one of the Cambridge colleges.
Now, having gained a degree, he was poised on the verge of a career. But which career? He had acquiredmore as a result of his intercourse with other students than with those officially deputed to instruct himsome understanding of the sciences; his essays had been praised and some of his poetry published, so that he inclined toward literature; and an uneasy sense that life for everyone outside the privileged classes contained too large a proportion of misery led him to think seriously of a political career. In Divinity, too, he was well-grounded; but at least the idea of Holy Orders did not tempt him.
While he wrestled with his future, he undertook to live away from home, since his relations with his father were never smooth. By rusticating himself in the heart of East Anglia, he hoped to gather material for a volume tentatively entitled “Wanderings with a Socialist Naturalist,” which would assuage all sides of his ambitions. Nancy Grendon, who had a pretty hand with a pencil, might even execute a little emblem for the title page … Perhaps he might be permitted to dedicate it to his author friend, Mr. Herbert George Wells…
He dressed himself warmly, for the morning was cold as well as dull, and went down to the baker’s stables. When he had saddled his mare, Daisy, he swung himself up and set out along a road that the horse knew well.
The land rose slightly towards the farm, the area about the house forming something of a little island amid marshy ground and irregular stretches of water that gave back to the sky its own dun tone. The gate over the little bridge was, as always, open wide; Daisy picked her way through the mud to the stables, where Gregory left her to champ oats contentedly. Cuff and her pup, Lardie, barked loudly about Gregory’s heels as usual, and he patted their heads on his way over to the house.