“Fat lot Bert Neckland knows about such things!” he called to her departing back.
He looked down at the dark water. Whatever it was that had arrived last night, it was here, only a few feet from him. He longed to discover what remained of it. Vivid pictures entered his mind: his name in headlines in “The Morning Post,” the Royal Society making him an honorary member, his father embracing him and pressing him to return home.
Thoughtfully, he walked over to the barn. Hens ran clucking out of his way as he entered and stood looking up, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. There, as he remembered it, was a little rowing boat. Perhaps in his courting days old Mr.
Grendoii had taken his prospective wife out for excursions on the Oast in it. Surely it had not been used in years. He dragged the boat from the barn and launched it in the shallows of the pond. It floated. The boards had dried, and water leaked through a couple of seams, but not nearly enough to deter him, Climbing delicately in among the straw and filth, he pushed off.
When he was over the approximate center of the pond, he shipped his oars and peered over the side. There was an agitation in the water, and nothing could be seen, although he imagined much.
As he stared over the one side, the boat unexpectedly tipped to the other. Gregory swung round. The boat listed heavily to the left, so that the oars rolled over that way. He could see nothing. Yethe heard something. It was a sound much like a hound slowly panting. And whatever made it was about to capsize the boat.
“What is it?” he said, as all the skin prickled up his back and skull.
The boat lurched, for all the world as if someone invisible were trying to get into it. Frightened, he grasped the oar, and, without thinking, swept it over that side of the rowing boat.
It struck something solid where there was only air.
Dropping the oar in surprise, he put out his hand. It touched something yielding. At the same time, his arm was violently struck.
His actions were then entirely governed by instinct. Thought did not enter the matter. He picked up the oar again and smote the thin air with it. It hit something. There was a splash, and the boat righted itself so suddenly he was almost pitched into the water. Even while it still rocked, he was rowing frantically for the shallows, dragging the boat from the water, and running for the safety of the farmhouse.
Only at the door did he pause. His reason returned, his heart began gradually to stop stammering its fright. He stood looking at the seamed wood of the porch, trying to evaluate what he had seen and what had actually happened. But what had happened?
Forcing himself to go back to the pond, he stood by the boat and looked across the sullen face of the water. It lay undisturbed, except by surface ripples. He looked at the boat A quantity of water lay in the bottom of it. He thought, all that happened was that I nearly capsized, and I let my idiot fears run away with me. Shaking his head, he pulled the boat back to the barn.
Gregory, as he often did, stayed to eat lunch at the farm, but he saw nothing of the farmer till milking time.
Joseph Grendon was in his late forties, and a few years older than his wife. He bad a gaunt solemn face and a heavy beard that made him look older than he was. For all his seriousness, he greeted Gregory civilly enough. They stood together in the gathering dusk as the cows swung behind them into their regular stalls. Together they walked into the machine house next door, and Grendon lit the oil burners that started the steam engine into motion that would turn the generator that would supply the vital spark.
“I smell the future in here,” Gregory said, smiling. By now, he had forgotten the shock of the morning.
“The future will have to get on without me. I shall be dead by then.” The farmer spoke as he walked, putting each word reliably before the next.