He went round the side of the house, and then over the frozen mud in the farmyard. I could see no further trace of him. But instinct led me forward, past the barn to the pond.
Surely enough, I then saw the cold, muddy water rise and heave, as if engulfing a body that slid quietly in. Shards of broken ice were thrust aside, and by an outward motion, I could see where the strange being went. In a flurry and a small whirlpool, he was gone, and I have no doubt dived down to the mysterious star vehicle.
These thingspeople1 know not what to call themmust be aquatic; perhaps they live in the canals of the Red Planet. But imagine, Siran invisible mankind! The idea is almost as wonderful and fantastic as something from your novel, “The Time Machine.”
Pray give me your comment, and trust in my sanity and accuracy as a reporter!
Yours in friendship,
Gregory Rolles.
What he did not tell was the way Nancy had clung to him after, in the warmth of the parlor, and confessed her fear. And he had scorned the idea that these beings could be hostile, and had seen the admiration in her eyes, and had thought that she was, after all, a dashed pretty girl, and perhaps worth braving the wrath of those two very different people for: Edward Rolles, his father, and Bert Neckland, the farm laborer.
It was at lunch a week later, when Gregory was again at the farm, taking with him an article on electricity as a pretext for his visit, that the subject of the stinking dew was first discussed.
Grubby was the first to mention it in Gregory’s hearing.
Grubby, with Bert Neckland, formed the whole strength of Joseph Grendon’s labor force; but whereas Neckland was considered couth enough to board in the farmhouse (he had a gaunt room in the attic), Grubby was fit only to sleep in a little flint-and-chalk hut well away from the farm buildings. His “house,” as he dignified the miserable hut, stood below the orchard and near the sties, the occupants of which lulled Grubby to sleep with their snorts.
“Reckon we ent ever had a dew like that before, Mr.
Grendon,” he said, his manner suggesting to Gregory that he had made this observation already this morning; Grubby never ventured to say anything original.
“Heavy as an autumn dew,” said the farmer firmly, as if there had been an argument on the point.
Silence fell, broken only by a general munching and, from Grubby, a particular guzzling, as they all made their way through huge platefuls of stewed rabbit and dumplings.
“It weren’t no ordinary dew, that I do know,” Grubby said after a while.
“It stank of toadstools,” Neckland said. “Or rotten pond water.”
More munching.
“It may be something to do with the pond,” Gregory said.
“Some sort of freak of evaporation.”
Neckland snorted. From his position at the top of the table, . the farmer halted his shovelling operations to point a fork at Gregory.
“You may well be right there. Because I tell you what, that there dew only come down on our land and property. A yard the other side of the gate, the road was dry. Bone dry it was.”
“Right you are there, master,” Neckland agreed. “And while the West Field was dripping with the stuff, I saw for myself that the bracken over the hedge weren’t wet at all. Ah, it’s a rum go!”
“Say what you like, we ent ever had dew like it,” Grubby said. He appeared to be summing up the feeling of the company.
The strange dew did not fall again. As a topic of conversation, it was limited, and even on the farm, where there was little new to talk about, it was forgotten in a few days. The February passed, being neither much worse nor much better than most Februaries, and ended in heavy rainstorms. March came, letting in a chilly spring over the land. The animals on the farm began to bring forth their young.
They brought them forth in amazing numbers, as if to over-turn all the farmer’s beliefs in the unproductiveness of his land.