Old Campbell peered over his thick glasses.
“The sword of judgment is sharpening for you, Mr. Reivers,” he said solemnly. “You ha’ this day sealed your own doom. A life for a life; and you have taken a life to-day unnecessarily. It is the holy law; you will pay. It is so written.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” laughed Reivers in great amusement. “But you’ve said that so many times before in just that same way, Scotty. Can’t you evolve a new idea? Or at least sing it in a different key?”
The old Scot looked at him without wavering or changing his expression.
“You are the smartest man I have ever known, Mr. Reivers, and the domdest fool,” he said in the same tone. “Do you fancy yourself more than mortal? Losh, man! A knife in the bowels, or a bullet or ax in the head will as readily make you a bit of poor clay as you’ve this day made yon poor old Bohunk.”
Reivers listened courteously to the end, waiting even a moment to be sure that Campbell had had his say.
“And you—doctor?” he said turning to Toppy. “What melancholy thoughts have you to utter?”
Toppy said nothing.
“Oh, come, Treplin!” said Reivers lightly. “Surely you’re not letting a little thing like that quarry-incident give you a bad evening? Where’s your philosophy, man? Consider the thing intelligently instead of sentimentally. There was so much rock to go into that dam in a day—and incidentally to-day finished the job. That was a useful, necessary work.
“For that old man to continue in this life was not useful or necessary. He was far down in the order of human development; centuries below you and me. Do you think it made the slightest difference whether he returned to the old cosmic mud whence he came, and from which he had not come far, in to-day’s little cave-in, or in a dirty bed, say ten years from now?