A thick grape red had trickled into the west like a spill of wine. The afternoon had suddenly crimsoned into the evening, and ruddy lights came slanting over the fields, deepening, reddening, so that the willows were like flames, and the willow pond was like a lake of blood.... The night wind rose, and Thyrza shivered.
“We mun be gitting hoame, surelye,” and she stood up, pulling the shawl over the baby’s face.
At the same time her heart was full of peace. The questioning mood had passed, and had given place to one single deep assurance of her husband’s love. Tom’s love seemed to go with her into the house, to be with her as she bathed Will and put him to bed, to drive away her brooding thoughts when, later on, she sat alone in the lamplight at her supper. She sang to herself as she put away the supper, a silly old song of Tom’s when he first joined up:
“The bells of hell go ring-aling-aling
For you, but not for me;
For me the angels sing-aling-aling,
They’ve got the goods for me.
O Death, where is thy sting-aling-aling?
Where, grave, thy victory?
The bells of hell go ring-aling-aling