The lawyer put his loose hand on Dan’s sleeve. “We have always been friends. Pentland Bale and I— These are parlous times. A man speaks in wrath, and does not know why.”

“Don’t think the worst of me.”

“I shan’t, Daniel, I shan’t. I know that you are not one with those—those—” He gulped, touched his hat, and went away up the hollowed stairs to his office.

People were in the road by the turnpike gate again, heedless of the rain, crowding expectantly around a ten-year-old boy who sat on a folded scrap of blanket, astride an old white mare. Face after face turned toward Bale as he came forward, then all twisted back once more.

“Your Pa send you, Roger?” rose out of the buzzing.

The child on the horse, nodded. His face was frightening—his lips were so utterly bloodless.

Dan asked of young Mrs. McBride, “He’s brought news?”

She bobbed an affirmative. “Yes, they struck against the enemy out by Marsh Crick. This is Ed Striger’s boy, he brung the word, just now.”

“What happened?”

“Our boys give way. Up toward Mummasburg. They went north with most of the rebels after ’em, Roger says.”

The boy repeated, “There was a lot of shooting. A lot. Ma and Aunt Kate got down in our cellar. Pa’s layed up with ague, but he said I should ride to town and tell folks.”

The town council, people said. Yes. He ought to go right down to Mr. Kendlehart and Mr. Orcutt and the rest. The white mare stood sadly, head bent and tail all knotty with burrs. As Dan went on toward his house, he could look back and see the crowd scattering, as if moved by an horrific impulse, and never intending to gather again … No more sound of firing. So he had heard muskets, and not the echo of thunder. Perhaps Elijah was killed.

“No,” he said aloud.

He walked into the dim kitchen and thumped his grocery box upon the table. Dan … oh, Dan. It was a ghastly whisper. He thought for a moment that some wraith had cried aloud inside his ears, a baleful ghost which would torment him forever. Dan … Dan! It was in the buttery. He stumbled across and flung open the door. Two faces stared out of the dimness, the smells of sour milk and cold eggs. Elijah, and some face he did not know. Huddlestone was lying on the floor: the other man squatted against the wall with a gun in his hands. “Christ,” Bale said.

Elijah smiled feebly. His chin was dirty with powder; it looked as if his mustache had melted and run. “We just scooted in here a minute ago. You were gone. We’ve been running like all hell, through the woods … Are the rebs here yet?”

“No.” Dan dropped to his knees. “You’re wounded? Hurt?”