cont.
“I can’t see anything,” said Tom impatiently. “Lets hurry.” The sky darkened and the rain seemed to fall more heavily.
“It’s really setting in now”, said Bob. “Come on, we must get on.”
“No, wait! That stone on the right of that bottle-shaped rock.” Chris was staring with a puzzled frown upon his face.
“Well, what about it, Chris?” Asked Curly curiously.
“It isn’t resting on the ground!”
The rain fell ceaselessly, confounding the absolute silence with a monotonous hiss. In the distance could just be heard the continuous gurgling of a stream, which, feeding greedily form the endless rain, crashed and danced dizzily down the hillside over rocks and stones, turning this way and that in a frenzy to reach its parent in the valley below. Awestruck by Chris’s breathless cry the boys stood silently as he clambered across cautiously to the stone.
“It’s his glasses in the rain,” whispered Tom anxiously.
Curly shook his head. “It’s not. There is something odd about it.”
They watched Chris slip several times on the wet grass before reaching the stone. He then lay flat and peered beneath it.
“You’ll get soaked Chris,” called Bob; then in an aside to the others: “What is he up to? Come on, he wants us.” As Chris beckoned, the others scrambled up to him.
“Have a look,” he cried excitedly. “You can see beneath it. Its not actually resting on the grass!”
Bob scratched his head. “I don’t understand this at all,” he said.
They all gazed at the stone. It was about four feet long and three feet round; very smooth, it glistened dully in the rain. Chris put his hand upon it gently and they were all startled as it softly contacted the ground.
“Good Lor! It Moved!”
Curly backed away. “Come on chaps, I don’t like this; it might be dangerous. Let’s go now and come back in the morning when the light’s better.” They all stood back and looked hard at the mysterious object.
“What do you make of it, Chris?” asked Tom anxiously, aware of his responsibilities for the party.
“I don’t know, Tom. Its certainly different form the local rocks, but seems too irregular to have been made by anyone. Let’s see if we can push it a little.”
Tom and Chris went to one of the object, watched by the others. At the touch it moved effortlessly a few yards then stopped against a small stone.
“What on earth is it?” Asked Curly anxiously once more. Tom and Chris took hold of the object, one each end, and lifted.
“Mind!” cried out Chris as the thing shot upwards. It would apparently have continued, had bob not lashed out and sent it sideways into one of the adjacent granite boulders. “Its so light,” Chris gasped in astonishment. “It doesn’t weigh anything at all!”
The object had come to rest against the side of the boulder it had stuck, some four feet above the grass. The rain had stopped and the noon was beginning to rise, as the boy stared incredulously.
“It must be gas-filled container dropped by an enemy aircraft during the war,” volunteered Curly in alarm.
“Don’t be silly,” said Tom. “It wouldn’t be this peculiar shape if it was gas filled.”
Chris had clambered up level with object, and was looking closely at it. “It seems to be more like metal than stone,” he called down.
“Here, I’ll press it down to you. Hold on to it or else we might lose it.” The boys quickly had hold of it as Chris scrambled down.
“We must take it home and examine it”, he said excitedly. “it must have come from outer-space!”
The little Devon Village of Tovey, lay in a green valley running through the moors. It handful of thatched stone cottages pressed themselves hard against the rising slopes of the Tors, as of endeavouring to keep as far as possible from the near by river that splashed and gurgled on its rock strewn bed, twisting and turning down the valley of Tiverton, two miles away. The Road had led the way from the main market town of Toverton-on-the-Moor six miles to the south. Through this town the main east-west trunk road passed on its way across the moors.
As one entered the little village of Tovey from the south, on a gentle sweep of the road, one crossed the river by a rugged stone bridge, which leapt across in a single bound. A few cottages huddled together untidily on the outer side of the curve, followed by the village hall of stone and rusty corrugated iron snuggling against the local garage and motor repair workshop; two ancient pumps stood like dejected sentinels outside.
A small pathway climbed away from the road, passing behind the hall and the school tucked away amongst the trees. This path led up onto the tors, past some shepherd’ cottages of whitewashed stone and thatch, and then ran parallel to a small impatient stream rushing down to join its parent river below. A little higher, the path crossed the stream via some half-submerged stepping-stones, and from these one could almost look upon the entire village.
