Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac

doesn’t come?’
    ‘Ah,
but he doth,’ replied Catweazle, tapping his forehead. ‘I see him now.’
    ‘Where?’
said Cedric, looking down the lane.
    ‘In the
Eye of Time, thou empty egg,’ retorted Catweazle.
    He
began to draw two sets of concentric circles on the stone. They were rather
like eyes and gave it a most peculiar look. ‘Like a prehistoric animal,’ thought
Cedric. Then they took cover behind a hedge as Jack Victor’s car drove up
followed by a small truck.
    ‘This
is all Collingford’s land,’ said Jack Victor, slamming the door of his car.
    The
surveyor, a tough-looking man called Richardson, jumped out of the truck
followed by his men.
    ‘We’ll
chop these woods down, of course, and flatten the hill with bulldozers,’ Victor
went on.
    Richardson
was looking curiously at the wogle-stone. ‘What on earth’s that thing?’ he
said.
    They
all clustered round it.
    ‘Touch
not the wogle-stone,’ cried Catweazle, rising from cover and brandishing the
divining rod.
    ‘The
what?’ stammered Jack Victor.
    ‘Oh,
it’s you again, is it?’ said Richardson grimly. He turned to Victor. ‘We’ve had
trouble with him already in the woods,’ he said and moved threateningly towards
Catweazle.
    ‘Er...
wait a minute Walter, don’t upset him,’ said Victor hurriedly.
     
    ‘He that doth touch the wogle-stone
    Soon all alone will groan and moan.’
     
    Catweazle
went on, while Cedric watched, fascinated, from the safety of the hedge.
    ‘I
don’t like the sound of that,’ said Victor uneasily.
    ‘Thou
must not move it,’ said Catweazle.
    ‘Well,
it’ll have to be moved some time,’ said Jack Victor apologetically. ‘The
supermarket’s going to be built just here.’
    ‘He’s
out of his mind,’ said Richardson angrily.
    ‘Move
it at thy peril,’ said Catweazle.
    Richardson
went red with rage. ‘Are you threatening me?’ he said. ‘A big housing estate is
going up here and it’ll take more than that overgrown pebble to stop it.’
    ‘Don’t
antagonize him,’ said Victor nervously, ‘that... er... stone could be an omen.’
    Richardson
was thoroughly exasperated. ‘Omens! Signs! the blooming stars! This is a
building site, not a fairy ring!’
    ‘We
don’t need to move it right now,’ said Jack Victor, not wishing to take any
chances.
    But
Richardson was determined to move it, so Jack Victor slunk back to his car
where he sat nervously biting his fingernails. As the men lifted the
wogle-stone, the light flashed on his radio telephone; it was his secretary in
London phoning to tell him a big deal had just fallen through and, as a result,
the firm had lost thousands of pounds.
    ‘Put it
back! Put it back!’ shouted Victor, scrambling out of the car and running to
where the men stood holding the wogle-stone. ‘We’ve just lost the Welsh
contract because of that thing!’
    ‘Coincidence!’
snorted Richardson.
    ‘Move
that stone and you’re fired,’ said Jack Victor.
    The men
put it back very quickly. As they did so Catweazle’s divining rod began to
twitch and he became very excited. ‘Water!’ he cried, ‘I have found the hidden
spring!’
    He
walked away, the forked stick trembling and turning in his hands. Cedric
watched as Victor and the others began to follow him.
    ‘It’s
an underground river!’ exclaimed Victor, ‘that means we couldn’t build here
anyway!’
    ‘Are
you going to take this old idiot’s word for it?’ said Richardson, though
Catweazle’s divining rod went on twitching and trembling.
    Victor
nodded. ‘He said no man could build where stands the wogle-stone. Well, now
he’s proved it.’
    ‘But
I’m the surveyor to this firm,’ said Richardson somewhat desperately. ‘I’m sure
there’s no underground river.’
    Victor
looked coldly at him. ‘The Elderford project is shelved.’ he said.
‘Permanently.’
    Richardson
had the sense to realize that it was useless to argue, and he and his men drove
off. Jack Victor gave a last worried glance at the wogle-stone and, hoping that
it had been sufficiently placated, he went back to tell the Collingfords about
the underground river.
    ‘No
doubt about it,’ he said to them, ‘according to my surveyor, these old water
diviners really know their stuff.’ Cedric and Catweazle were triumphant. The
wogle-stone had worked. So had the divining rod.
    Catweazle
began to dig for his spring with a discarded pick, convinced he would find the
spring. ‘ ’Twillleadme to the Sign of the