The Lowest Rung Part 6

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."

"I know," he said; "but somehow it's worse leaving you with so much money in the house."

"No one knows it will be there."

"That is true, except that every one knows I have been collecting large sums."

"They will think you have gone to pay it in as usual."

"Yes," he said with an effort.

Then he got up, and went to his tool-box. She watched him open it, seeing him in a new light which encompa.s.sed him with even greater love.

"If I tell him to-night," she thought, "it will make him still more anxious about leaving me. Perhaps he would refuse to go, and he must go.

I will not tell him till he comes back."

The resolution not to speak was like taking hold of a piece of iron in frost. She had not known it would hurt so much. A new tremulousness, sweet and strange, pa.s.sed over her--not cowardice, not fear, not of the heart nor of the mind, but a sort of emotion of the whole being.

"I will not tell him," she said again.

Her husband got out his tools, took up a plank from the floor, and put the money into a hole beneath it, beside their small valuables, such as they were, in a biscuit tin. Then he replaced the plank, screwed it down, and she drew back a small fur mat over the place. He put away the tools and then came and stood in front of her. He was not conscious of her transfiguration, and she dropped her eyes for fear of showing it.

"I shall start early," he said, "as soon as it is light, and I shall be back before sundown the day after to-morrow. I know it is unreasonable, but I shall go easier in my mind if you will promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Not to go out of the house, or to let any one else come in on any pretence whatever, while I am away," he said. "Bar everything, and stay inside."

"I shan't want to go out."

He made an impatient movement.

"Promise me that, come what will, you will let no one in during my absence," he said.

"I promise."

"Swear it."

She hesitated.

"Swear it, to please me," he said.

"I swear that I will let no one into the house, on any pretext whatever, until you come back," she said, smiling at him.

He sighed and relapsed into his chair, and gave way to the great fatigue that possessed him.

The next morning he started soon after daybreak, but not until he had brought her in sufficient fuel to last several days. There had been more snow in the night, fine snow like salt, but not enough to make travelling difficult. She watched him ride away, and silenced the voice within her which always said as she saw him go, "You will never see him again; you have heard his voice for the last time." Perhaps, after all, the difference between the brave and the cowardly lies in how they deal with that voice. Both hear it. She silenced it instantly. It spoke again, more insistently, "You have heard his voice, felt his kiss, for the last time. He will never see the face of his child." She silenced it again, and went about her work.

The day pa.s.sed as countless other days had pa.s.sed. She was accustomed to be much alone. She had work to do, enough and to spare, within the little home which was to become a real home, please G.o.d, in the spring.

The evening fell almost before she expected it. She locked and barred the doors, and closed the shutters of the windows. She made all secure, as she had done many a time before.