‘I have a feeling there won’t be a war,’ I argued when Terry reproached me. ‘Surely people have more sense by this time of day. Besides, war doesn’t come out of a clear sky. We’ll have warning in ample time.’

‘So will other people, and prices will rise,’ she said. ‘Have you bought your ammunition?’

‘Yes. It’s not like flour and sugar and such perishables. It will keep indefinitely and one always finds use for it.’ 1 ‘How much?’

‘Five thousand rounds for the.22, all my permit allows. Five hundred for the .303. I had to pay through the nose for that, since I haven’t a permit.’

We put off buying provisions until spring came. Our fears were slowly allayed, not only by the apathy which comes when one has made ready to face a difficulty which fails to appear, but also by a changed tone in the world’s affairs.

‘And all our worry and plans were wasted,’ I said to Terry in early March. ‘I’m going to begin digging the garden.’

‘Not wasted, Hugh,’ she reproached me. ‘The fate that makes our worry vain is too happy for grudging.’

‘I am almost sorry we aren’t to go,’ I went on, teasing her. ‘We would have enjoyed being cave-dwellers.’

‘Oh hush, Hugh!’ she cried. ‘I won’t let you speak like that.’

I started to dig the garden and to buy seeds. On the third of April we went fishing on Loch Ericht. We brought a nice basket of trout home in the evening.

‘I’ll light the stove if you clean the trout,’ Terry told me. ‘Turn on the wireless until we hear the weather report. If it’s to be fine to-morrow we’ll go for a picnic to Fortwilliam, maybe. I’m longing for the sea.’

‘Terry!’ I shouted, when I heard the first words the loudspeaker gave forth. ‘Terry!’

She came running from the kitchen with the frying-pan in her hand. We stood in front of the wireless, as if we heard our doom spoken by its inanimate voice. We were on the brink of war. The nations were mobilizing. War, war, war. Across the continent we heard that sound. Cheering crowds, hoarse orators, marching feet, drums and babel.

‘Shut it off,’ Terry said. It was there still.

‘I never dreamt of this; that it would come to this,’ she breathed.

‘I should have known!’ I cried in an agony of self-reproach.

‘We must see how much we have in the house,’ she said. ‘I’ll go out immediately and buy everything I can get.’

‘I doubt if you’ll get anything,’ I told her. ‘We’ll be rationed right away. It’s too late to get money from the bank. Why did I delay?’

‘Some one will cash a cheque, Hugh.’

‘What are we going to do, Terry?’

‘Do? what we made up our minds to do. What else?’

‘We counted on stores and tools.’