Ellen watched for Jasper to return from the shop toward St Lucy where she knew that he had gone, but when he did not pass she thought he might have walked through the fields above the quarry. After they had eaten supper Ellen and Henry went toward the back of the farm, climbing the fence into Wingate’s scrubby woodland. They went into the ravines and Ellen found the place where the swine had been penned; but the enclosure was broken down and the hogs were gone. They went slowly back onto the high pasture and walked along the crest of the ridge above the stone pit, uncertainly going. Henry thought that Jasper had probably moved the hogs to some other place, and they studied out the possibilities of this, uneasy and troubled. They climbed the fence into Wingate’s field and took Jasper’s path toward the barn. The night was dark because of a clouded moon and the old house loomed very great in the midst of its shadows. They could hear great cries and oaths and sounds of scuffling within the house, where one light burned dimly behind a back window. After a while a door was flung open and Jasper stood in the light of the door frame, and then two, Jasper and another, lunged upon each other, their cries and curses sounding loud through the open door. Then Jasper sprang at another’s throat and bent him down with his hand, holding him back upon the floor, and the door was closed. After that there was a long time of quiet.

Ellen and Henry went back to the barnyard and hid behind the tall fence. The noises inside the house had fallen away, but now and then an undetermined figure would move slowly through the door of the house or across the grass beyond the well path. A shape would loom under the trees and go bending away toward the road. A strange footstep came from the barn, and then, after a long stillness, a running step came from the garden. Henry whispered to Ellen that they would go further back, that they would go to the tall brush at the side of the pasture, away from the house, and Ellen followed him there. After they were in the thicket beyond the yard, Ellen saw Jasper come out of the barn carrying a lighted lantern, but at the door of the barn he set the lantern down and went away for a short time. When he came back he was leading a plough horse, and this he took inside, fastening it into a stall. He was slow in his movements, plodding wearily. ‘He thinks Albert went off,’ she whispered to Henry; ‘He thinks they’re all gone off somewheres,’ and she was afraid for him, remembering the step in the garden. A few drops of rain began to fall, hanging rather in the quiet heavy air. She moved down the grove, no longer able to see the front of the barn, but she thought she might draw nearer from the back and call out to Jasper to come away. Suddenly the light, which she now saw through the cracks in the barn, went out, and noises of scuffling feet came from the barn and the barnyard, or Jasper’s voice came, or another voice called back to him, broken and angry. They were struggling behind the crib, lost in the shadows of the buildings, their cuffs and blows and oaths coming sharply out of the dark, or there would be a still moment following a deeply breathed cry. Then Jasper came alone out of the side of the corncrib and stood a short space, and Ellen called out his name. As he came toward the thicket she spoke again, and Henry came down from the upper part of the grove. Then they walked off through the trees, Jasper wiping the sweat and blood from his face, still breathing hard from his exhaustion, walking unevenly. He carried a pistol in his hand.