Part 6 (1/2)

Her husband took his horse round and stalled him. Presently he came in.

They stood a moment together in silence as their custom was, and she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. Then she busied herself with his supper, and he sat down heavily at the little table.

”Had you any difficulty this time in getting the money together?” she asked.

Her husband was a tax collector.

”None,” he said abstractedly; ”at least--yes--a little. But I have it all, and the arrears as well. It makes a large sum.”

He was evidently thinking of something else. She did not speak again.

She saw something was troubling him.

”I heard news to-day at Philip's,” he said at last, ”which I don't like.

If I had heard in time, and if I could have borrowed a fresh horse, I would have ridden straight on to ----. But it was too late in the day to be safe, and you would have been anxious what had become of me if I had been out all night with all this money on me. I shall go to-morrow as soon as it is light.”

They discussed the business which took him to the nearest town thirty miles away, where their small savings were invested, somewhat precariously, as it turned out. What was safe, who was safe, while the invisible war between North and South smouldered on and on? It had not come near them, but as an earthquake which is engulfing cities in one part of Europe will rattle a tea-cup without oversetting it on a cottage shelf half a continent away, so the civil war had reached them at last.

”I take a hopeful view,” he said, but his face was overcast. ”I don't see why we should lose the little we have. It has been hard enough to sc.r.a.pe it together, G.o.d knows. Prompt.i.tude and joint action with Reynolds will probably save it. But I must be prompt.” He still spoke abstractedly, as if even now he were thinking of something else.

He began to take out of the leathern satchel various bags of money.

”Shall I help you to count it?”

She often did so.

They counted the flimsy dirty paper-money together, and put it all back into the various labelled bags.

”It comes right,” he said.

Suddenly she said, ”But you can't pay it into the bank to-morrow if you go to ----.”

”I know,” he said looking at her; ”that is what I have been thinking of ever since I heard Philip's news. I don't like leaving you with all this money in the house; but I must.”

She was silent. She was not frightened for herself, but it was State money, not their own. She was not nervous as he was, but she had always shared with him a certain dread of those bulging bags, and had always been thankful to see him return safe--he never went twice by the same track--after paying the money in. In those wild days, when men went armed, with their lives in their hands, it was not well to be known to have large sums about you.

He looked at the bags, frowning.

”I am not afraid,” she said.

”There is no real need to be,” he said after a moment. ”When I leave to-morrow morning, it will be thought I have gone to pay it in.

Still----”

He did not finish his sentence, but she knew what was in his mind: the great loneliness of the prairie. Out in the white night came the short, sharp yap of a wolf.

”I am not afraid,” she said again.

”I shall be gone only one night,” he said.

”I have often been a night alone.”