‘Yes,’ continued my father, ‘I have received to-day a list of all that I
possess; of all, I say; of what I have lent privately to men whose lips
are sealed with terror; of what I have buried with my own hand on the
bare mountain, when there was not a bird in heaven. Does the air, then,
carry secrets? Are the hills of glass? Do the stones we tread upon
preserve the footprint to betray us? Oh, Lucy, Lucy, that we should have
come to such a country!’
‘But this,’ returned my mother, ‘is no very new or very threatening
event. You are accused of some concealment. You will pay more taxes in
the future, and be mulcted in a fine. It is disquieting, indeed, to find
our acts so spied upon, and the most private known. But is this new?
Have we not long feared and suspected every blade of grass?’
‘Ay, and our shadows!’ cried my father. ‘But all this is nothing. Here
is the letter that accompanied the list.’