wood, but Duncan knew straight away that it was something else. He came up to the object and stopped.

"Mighty strange?" he said, picking the newspaper up.

He turned it over and over in his hands, feeling the plastic wrapper, and looking at the patterns of type.

"This might be a fish?"

He held the newspaper in his large workman's left hand, and poked the ox to get it going again. Soon he was back at the door to his cottage.

"Good day to you, wife!" said Duncan, as he met her at the door. He pushed the ox into a pen of tied branches and leaned the goad against the wall.

"Good day, husband," said Jeanette.

"That’s three more acres done today. It’ll be a good season next year if the Lord's willing, and the corn come into ear on time?"

"What’s that you've got?"

"I've been a-puzzling about that since I found it not far hence. I think it’s some kind of fish, fallen from the sky!"

He waved his hand in the general direction of the hillside, to indicate.

Jeanette took the cylinder of paper and eyed it curiously.

"They be markings?" she said, "The like's of which I've never seen. Now there's a puzzle indeed, that a fish should have markings of this sort?"

"We can look careful at it when we've supped," said Duncan, suddenly aware of the grumblings in his stomach.

Jeanette followed her husband into the house and shut the door.

The room inside was small but comfortable. A small fire flamed quietly in the hearth, and two shafts of light gave the room a soft, warmth, as the evening threw its last light away. Duncan went to a big iron pot, which sat half over the fire. He lifted the heavy iron lid and sniffed the steam.

"You can have some soup when you stop your meddling with my pot!" said Jeanette, feigning crossness.

Duncan got a bowl and sat down. He toed his old leather shoes off and leaned back, giving the sigh of a