THE STEADFAST HEART
… Riding down the road…. It’s that money. Robbers always hear of money. When I say shoot you pull the trigger…. Oh, help, help, help!” Then she fell to moaning and to repeating over and over and over endlessly the miserable monosyllable, “Oh, oh, oh, oh….” until the word seemed to bore tiny, icy holes in Angus’s soul.
So passed an hour, the woman crouching, cowering in her corner, a squalid, unhuman sight; the little boy on guard, facing the door, waiting, listening, clutching the heavy stock of his father’s rifle until his fingers ached and cramped. He had not moved…. Of a sudden Mrs. Burke lifted her unkempt head and listened. “They’ve come,” she squalled, “They’ve come!”
To Angus’s ears came the sound of approaching horses, and a spasm of terror wracked him. He wanted to scream, to burrow, to hide his face…. Then came the sound of men’s voices, hushed, muffled, stealthy, menacing—and the noise of men leaping to the ground and moving about cautiously…. There was a pause of subdued conversation; then footsteps moved toward the house.
“Robbers!” Mrs. Burke tried to scream the word, but only a whisper came. “The robbers have come…. The light! The light!” She crawled along the floor to the table and pushed
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