She had in her head a picture—vivid, detailed—of all his kit spread over the bed, over half the floor. Such things! And the expense! The boots alone were more than twenty pounds. She had found the receipt under the bed once he’d gone—George Hoby, Bootmaker of Piccadilly. Six shirts she had sewn herself. Six black neckties, twelve pairs of worsted half-stockings, two sets of overalls, four white waistcoats. A blue pelisse—blue as you might dream of blue—with a fur-lined collar he told her was from the pelt of a wolf. And then the rest—the pocket handkerchiefs, pillowcases, spare cuffs, spare collars, spare buttons. Not that all of it was new. He had been with the regiment three years already, bought his commission the autumn after his father died, but he had not been on campaign before and had been free with money he perhaps did not have. The spyglass! The spyglass was new. He was pleased with it and had taken it from its leather case and said come over here, Nell, come to the window, and he had held it to her eye and after some fiddling with the lens she had seen, large as life, a farmer (she knew him) swaying down Water Lane on his mare, babbling to himself and scratching his hindquarters and not the least idea he was watched. It had made her laugh but made her uneasy too. Was that how God watched us? And if so, what must He think of us, seeing everything?

She moved the pack on to the floor and sat in its place on the press. She undid the straps, pulled them through the buckles, laid back the flap. She paused, then reached inside. The first thing she pulled out was a tin mug, dented and smoke-blackened as though used as a little saucepan. She set it on the floor next to the pack. Next out was two inches of tallow candle, then a curry comb, a clasp knife with a broken blade, and a lump of something the size of a walnut and hard as a walnut which, examined more closely, she decided was bread, very old bread. The dog had drifted over to her. She held the lump to his nose. He sniffed it, touched it with the tip of his tongue, looked up at her. “Yes,” she said. “And we’ll burn this too.”