‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I returned. ‘With this east wind it’s very hard to tell how far away sounds are. I remember in nineteen-eighteen we used to hear the guns in France, often on a Sunday morning, if the wind was right, so near and clear you’d think they were close by. We knew when a battle was coming on by the noise, swelling out of the east like a heavy sea. Lord, what an age ago that seems! We didn’t know each other then, Terry. How old were you? Seven? I was eight when the War finished, Gone eight, I used to say, bigsy, you know, making a grown-up of myself. But I can remember the guns and when there was fighting in the North Sea—’

‘I heard that too,’ she broke in. ‘It was always a rumbling noise then, not distinct and separate like last night. Last night’s noise resembled the Fleet at gun-practice in the Moray Firth. You know how we used to see the glare and flash in the sky before we heard the sound of the guns. I saw fire in the sky last night, on the horizon over there.’

‘Wildfire,’ I suggested. ‘If it was, I hope we get this place properly tight and snug before the weather breaks. You always see wildfire when a storm’s brewing in the hills.’

‘I hope it was wildfire,’ she said after a brief silence, and then: ‘I’m going to start spring-cleaning.’

I began to laugh and say something about Nero, but she interrupted me angrily.

‘You know how important it is for us to keep a grip on ourselves,’ she cried; ‘even if we are fugitives in a cave—all the more because of that. We daren’t let ourselves grow careless. It might be all right to lounge and laze just now while the weather’s good, but if we get into a slovenly way we’ll never get out of it, and by winter we’ll be savages, dirty and cold and demoralized. It wasn’t to degenerate into savages that we came here.’

‘No,’ I said moodily; ‘we had a lot of good reasons, but they don’t look so good now. Och, Terry, don’t heed me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t mean it really. Only when I see ourselves making ourselves at home here, and settling down as if for ever, I feel it’s going to be for ever. That sets me wondering what’s happening, if anything’s happening, or if we ran away from nothing at all but our own imaginations.’

‘The noise wasn’t wildfire,’ she answered. ‘I wish I could find an occupation to keep your mind busy, boy. I’ve got my job thinking out meals and how to economize our stores—why don’t you write?’