The Colossus | Page 5

steeple of Ulmata's
church--a black mark on the fading blush of lingering twilight. A chilly
darkness crept out of the valley. Hungry dogs barked in the dreary
village. DeGolyer could see but a single light. It burned in the priest's
house--a dark age, and as of yore, with all the light held by the church.
The weary man liberated his mule on a common, where its former
companions were grazing, and sought the house of his friends. The
house was dark and the doors were fastened. He knocked, and a
startling echo, an audible darkness, came from the valley. He knocked
again, and a voice cried from the street:

"Who's that?"
"Helloa, is that you, my boy?"
There was no answer, but a figure rushed through the darkness, seized
DeGolyer, and in a hoarse whisper said:
"Come where there's a light."
"Why, what's the matter, Henry?"
"Come where there's a light."
DeGolyer followed him to a wretched place that bore the name of a
public-house, and went with him into a room. A lamp sputtered on a
shelf. Young Sawyer caught DeGolyer's hands.
"I have waited so long for you to come back to this dreadful place. I am
all alone. Uncle is dead."
DeGolyer sat down without saying a word. He sat in silence, and then
he asked:
"When did he die?"
"About two weeks after you left."
"Did he kill himself?"
"Good God, no! Why did you think that?"
"Oh, I didn't really think it--don't know why I said it."
"He was sick only a few days, and the strangest thing has come to light!
He seemed to know before he was taken sick that he was going to die,
and he spent nearly a whole day in writing--writing something for
me--and the strangest thing has come to light. I can hardly realize it.
Here it is; read it. Don't say a word till you have read every line of it.
Strangest thing I ever heard of."
And this is what DeGolyer read by the light of the sputtering lamp:
"Years ago there lived in Salem, Mass., two brothers, George and
Andrew Witherspoon. Their parents had passed away when the boys
were quite young, but the youngsters had managed to get a fair start in
life. Without ado let me say that I am Andrew Witherspoon. My
brother and I were of different temperaments. He had graces of mind,
but was essentially a business man. I prided myself that I was born to
be a thinker. I worshiped Emerson. I know now that a man who would
willingly become a thinker is a fool. When I was twenty-three--and
George nearly twenty-one--I fell in love with Caroline Springer. There
was just enough of poetry in my nature to throw me into a devotion that
was almost wild in its intensity, and after my first meeting with her I

knew no peace. The chill of fear and the fever of confidence came
alternating day by day, and months passed ere I had the strength of
nerve to declare myself; but at last the opportunity and the courage
came together. I was accepted. She said that if I had great love her love
might be measured by my own, and that if I did not think that I could
love her always she would go away and end her days in grief. The
wedding day was appointed. But when I went to claim my bride she
was gone--gone with my brother George. To-day, an old man, I look
back upon that time and see myself raving on the very brink of
madness. I had known that George was acquainted with Caroline
Springer--indeed, I had proudly introduced him to her. I will tell my
story, though, and not discourse. But it is hard for an old man to be
straightforward. If he has read much he is discursive, and if he has not
read he is tedious with many words. I didn't leave Salem at once. I met
George, and he did not even attempt to apologize for the wrong he had
done me. He repeated the fool saying that all is fair in love. 'You ought
to be glad that you discovered her lack of love in time,' he said. This
was consolation, surely. My mind may never have been well-balanced,
and I think that at this time it tilted over to one side, never to tilt back.
And now my love, trampled in the mire, arose in the form of an evil
determination. I would do my brother and his wife an injury that could
not be repaired. I did not wish them dead; I wanted them to live and be
miserable. A year passed, and a boy was born. I left my native town
and went west. I lived there nearly