“It was the Montaigne,” said the stranger. “I want cheering, I want sympathy, I want self-forgetfulness; I do not want irresponsible chatter. The possession, in a refined mind, of qualities suitable to my needs seemed to speak from your reply, and from your reply alone. Can you chop wood?”
“I must not say I cannot,” said Gilead modestly; “because I have never tried.”
“No matter,” said the stranger dispiritedly. “So long as your presence and example stimulate me to exertion, my purpose is served. I will be frank with you. The weight upon my bones exactly symbolises another upon my conscience” (Gilead’s lips tightened). “The two are so associated, in fact, that, with every ounce of flesh I may lose, my conscience will be correspondingly and automatically lightened. A return to reasonable proportions would make me a happy man.”
Gilead regarded the speaker steadily. What despicable villainy was this, to be so cowed and humbled under the superstition that his personal bulk was directly attributable to his crimes! So he read the implication; and he could have laughed, in another mood, over the retributions exacted by self-indulgence. But that Winsom Wyllie, the sinister, the demoniac, the masterful, should have resolved himself into this! Well, all wickedness was vanity, but he had not thought to encounter a vanity quite so abject.
The stranger turned heavily, and, motioning Gilead to accompany him, slouched towards the rearward shed.
“Yes,” he said, “my thoughts weigh me down; they are too much for my single endurance; that was why I wanted a companion to distract me from them—to take me out of myself.”
There were a couple of blocks and stools standing ready, with bill-hooks and a plentiful supply of logs waiting to be split. The stranger took his seat, and Gilead, divesting himself of his coat, followed his example. The other observed him with a doleful curiosity.
“This is new to you,” he said. “I daresay you are wondering how I come to have the run of the place. It is closed, as a matter of fact, from lack of patronage by the unemployed, who nevertheless themselves declare that they are as numerous and deserving as ever. I hired it for a week, stipulating that my personal labour should be set against the rent. If you want to spare your fingers, don’t hold your billet like that. Watch me.”
For several minutes he hewed and laboured in a perfect frenzy of energy, and only desisted when he was streaming from every pore.
“Ha!” he said. “I lard the lean earth, like—like whom?”