"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
When the old man had gone he looked out over the yellowing fields with a frank distaste for the level immensity. Suddenly there rang in his ears the harsh singing of many men: "Where do we go from here, boys, where do we go from here?" Old Sharon was rooted in the soil; dying there. But he was still free. He could wire Leach Belding he was starting—and start.
About eight o'clock the following night he parked the Can beside the ridge road, and for the first time in his proud career of ownership cursed its infirmities. It was competent, but no car for a tryst one might not wish to advertise. When its clamour had been stilled he waited some moments, feeling that a startled countryside must rush to the spot. Yet no one came, so at last he went furtively through the thinned grove and about clumps of hazel brush, feeling his way, stepping softly, crouching low, until he could make out the stile where it broke the lines of the fence. The night was clear and the stile was cleanly outlined by starlight. Beyond the fence was a shadowed mass, first a clump of trees, the outbuildings of the Whipple New Place, the house itself. There were lights at the back, and once voices came to him, then the thin shatter of glass on stone, followed by laughs from two dissonant throats. He stood under a tall pine, listening, but no other sound came. After a while he sat at the foot of the tree. Crickets chirped and a bat circled through the night. The scent of the pine from its day-long baking was sharp in his nostrils. His back tired against the tree, and he eased himself to the cooled grass, face down, his hands crossed under his chin. He could look up now and see the stile against stars.
He waited. He had expected to wait. The little night sounds that composed the night's silence, his own stillness, his intent watching, put him back to nights when silence was ominous. Once he found he had stopped breathing to listen to the breathing of the men on each side of him. He was waiting for the word, and felt for a rifle. He had to rise to shake off this oppression. On his feet he laughed softly, being again in Newbern on a fool's mission. He lay down hands under his chin, but again the silent watching beset him with the old oppression. He must be still and strain his eyes ahead. Presently the word would come, or he would feel the touch of a groping foe. He half dozed at last from the memory of that other endless fatigue. He came to himself with a start and raised his head to scan the stile. The darkness had thickened but the two posts at the ends of the fence were still outlined. He watched and waited.
After a long time the east began to lighten; a deepening glow rimmed West Hill, picking out in silver the trees along its edge. If she meant to come she must come soon, he thought, but the rising moon distinctly showed the bare stile. She had written a long time ago. She was notoriously a rattlepate. Of course she would have forgotten. Then for a moment his straining eyes were puzzled. His gaze had not shifted even for an instant, yet the post at the left of the stile had unaccountably thickened. He considered it a trick of the advancing moonshine, and looked more intently. It was motionless, like the other post, yet it had thickened. Then he saw it was taller, but still it did not move. It could be no one. Mildly curious, he crept forward to make the post seem right in this confusing new glamour. But it broadened as he neared it, and still was taller than its neighbour, its lines not so sharp.
He rose to his feet, with a dry laugh at his own credulity, taking some slow steps forward, expecting each stride to resolve the post to its true dimensions. He was within a dozen feet of it before he saw it could not be a post—anyway, not the same post. His scalp crept into minute wrinkles at the back of his head. He knew the feeling—fear! But, as in other times, he could not make his feet go back. Two other steps and he saw she must be there. She had not stirred, but the rising light caught her wan face and a pale glint of eyes.
All at once his fear was greater—greater than any he had known in battle. His feet dragged protestingly, but he forced them on. He wanted her to speak or move to break that tension of fear. But not until he reached out stiffening fingers to touch her did she stir. Then she gave a little whispered cry and all at once it was no longer moonlight for him, but full day. A girl in nurse's cap and a faded, much laundered dress of light blue stood before a battered church, beside a timbered breach in its gray stone wall. He was holding her.
The song was coming to him, harsh and full throated from many men: "Where do we go from here, boys, where do we go from here?"
"We don't go anywhere from here," he heard himself say in anger. They were the only words he had spoken.