The Helpers

by Francis Lynde

This single preliminary set in order, he faced once more toward the Highlands, lagging a little from sheer weariness as he went, but finding comfort in the thought that there would be infinite surcease from hunger and exhaustion at the end of this last pilgrimage.

There was time for reflection on the way, and he marvelled that his thoughts dwelt so persistently upon the trivial details of the thing he was about to do. He was a practiced swimmer; would the weight of a single brick be sufficient to overcome the instinct of self-preservation which might assert itself at the last moment? Probably, since he was weak from fasting, and would be encumbered with his clothing. Then another suggestion came to torment him: If he should tie the brick to his feet, as he had thought to, the water might not be deep enough, after all. Consequently, he must fasten it about his neck. And thereupon he had a fit of creeping horror at the thought of drowning with his face dragged down into the ooze and slime of the bottom.

Oddly enough, when he came to the brink of the pool these things ceased to trouble him; though even there it was impossible to turn the current of thought into a reflective channel. He made the effort for decency's sake. It was not meet that a thinking being should go out of life like the brutes that perish; without a thought for the past with its lacks and havings, or the future with its untried possibilities. But the effort returned to him void, and presently he stumbled upon the reason: the premeditated fact of self-murder shut him off alike from repentance for what had gone before, and from hope in what should come after.

Very good, he said; and flung himself down to make the most of the present. He was faint and weary, and it would be ill to drown a tired body. There was no moon, but the midsummer night was clear and still. The stars burned steadily overhead, and there was a soft light abroad which seemed to be a part of the atmosphere. Over in the west the black bulk of the range rose up to meet the sky; and poised above one of the highest peaks the planet Mars swung to its setting. Jeffard marked it, saying it should be his executioner; that when the rosy point of light should touch the black sky-line, he would rise up and go to his place.

Meanwhile it was soothing to lie stretched out upon the warm earth with no human future to prefigure, and no past insistent enough to disturb one with its annals. And there was still the present, with its soft light and its dim hemisphere of sky; its balmy air and its vague and shadowy horizon. It was good to be alone with nature in these last few moments; to have done with the tiresome world of man's marring; to be quit of man's presence.

The thought had scarcely shaped itself when it was made of none effect by the appearance of a man at the top of the little knoll. The intruder came straight on, as if in no doubt as to his purpose, and sitting down on the end of the plank bridge, proceeded to fill and light his pipe without saying a word. Jeffard caught a glimpse of a bearded face by the flare of the match, and said, "Oh, it's you again, is it?"

"Right you are, pardner. Hope I ain't intrudin'."

"I suppose you have as good a right here as I have. But I might suggest that the night is fine and the world large, and that there are times when a man has no use for his fellows."

The new-comer smoked in silence for a full minute before he removed his pipe to say:—

"That's a sort of a gilt-edged invitation for me to mog off, ain't it? All right; I'll go pretty middlin' quick; but I've been fool enough to tramp somewheres nigh ten mile behind you to-night for to get a show to say what's on my mind; wher'fore, I'll say it first and vamoose afte'wards."