The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth. Герберт Уэллс

so recent in time, so remote in its emotions, when he had walked from Urshot to the Experimental Farm to see the giant chicks.

      Fate plays with us.

      "Tcheck, tcheck," said Cossar. "Get up."

      It was a hot midday afternoon, not a breath of wind, and the dust was thick in the roads. Few people were about, but the deer beyond the park palings browsed in profound tranquillity. They saw a couple of big wasps stripping a gooseberry bush just outside Hickleybrow, and another was crawling up and down the front of the little grocer's shop in the village street trying to find an entry. The grocer was dimly visible within, with an ancient fowling-piece in hand, watching its endeavours. The driver of the waggonette pulled up outside the Jolly Drovers and informed Redwood that his part of the bargain was done. In this contention he was presently joined by the drivers of the waggon and the trolley. Not only did they maintain this, but they refused to let the horses be taken further.

      "Them big rats is nuts on 'orses," the trolley driver kept on repeating.

      Cossar surveyed the controversy for a moment.

      "Get the things out of that waggonette," he said, and one of his men, a tall, fair, dirty engineer, obeyed.

      "Gimme that shot gun," said Cossar.

      He placed himself between the drivers. "We don't want you to drive," he said.

      "You can say what you like," he conceded, "but we want these horses."

      They began to argue, but he continued speaking.

      "If you try and assault us I shall, in self-defence, let fly at your legs. The horses are going on."

      He treated the incident as closed. "Get up on that waggon, Flack," he said to a thickset, wiry little man. "Boon, take the trolley."

      The two drivers blustered to Redwood.

      "You've done your duty to your employers," said Redwood. "You stop in this village until we come back. No one will blame you, seeing we've got guns. We've no wish to do anything unjust or violent, but this occasion is pressing. I'll pay if anything happens to the horses, never fear."

      "That's all right," said Cossar, who rarely promised.

      They left the waggonette behind, and the men who were not driving went afoot. Over each shoulder sloped a gun. It was the oddest little expedition for an English country road, more like a Yankee party, trekking west in the good old Indian days.

      They went up the road, until at the crest by the stile they came into sight of the Experimental Farm. They found a little group of men there with a gun or so – the two Fulchers were among them – and one man, a stranger from Maidstone, stood out before the others and watched the place through an opera-glass.

      These men turned about and stared at Redwood's party.

      "Anything fresh?" said Cossar.

      "The waspses keeps a comin' and a goin'," said old Fulcher. "Can't see as they bring anything."

      "The canary creeper's got in among the pine trees now," said the man with the lorgnette. "It wasn't there this morning. You can see it grow while you watch it."

      He took out a handkerchief and wiped his object-glasses with careful deliberation.

      "I reckon you're going down there," ventured Skelmersdale.

      "Will you come?" said Cossar.

      Skelmersdale seemed to hesitate.

      "It's an all-night job."

      Skelmersdale decided that he wouldn't.

      "Rats about?" asked Cossar.

      "One was up in the pines this morning – rabbiting, we reckon."

      Cossar slouched on to overtake his party.

      Bensington, regarding the Experimental Farm under his hand, was able to gauge now the vigour of the Food. His first impression was that the house was smaller than he had thought – very much smaller; his second was to perceive that all the vegetation between the house and the pine-wood had become extremely large. The roof over the well peeped amidst tussocks of grass a good eight feet high, and the canary creeper wrapped about the chimney stack and gesticulated with stiff tendrils towards the heavens. Its flowers were vivid yellow splashes, distinctly visible as separate specks this mile away. A great green cable had writhed across the big wire inclosures of the giant hens' run, and flung twining leaf stems about two outstanding pines. Fully half as tall as these was the grove of nettles running round behind the cart-shed. The whole prospect, as they drew nearer, became more and more suggestive of a raid of pigmies upon a dolls' house that has been left in a neglected corner of some great garden.