Article December 6, 1969 Issue

The Coming of Light

MARGARITA B. HESMONDHALGH

A newspaper report described the ordeal of two young men. Walking in winter on a Scottish mountainside, they lost their way and were overtaken by the early darkness. They dared not attempt to negotiate the precipitous slopes and spent the long hours of the night desperately trying to ward off the intense cold and increasing fatigue. As soon as it was light, they set off but had hardly gone ten paces before they saw, on the hillside below them, a farmhouse, where food and shelter were abundantly available.

"But didn't you see our lights?" asked the farmer. "We can be seen for miles around!"

Their dread of the darkness, their concentrated anxiety, and above all their own estimate of their position, which they had assumed to be miles from human habitation, had kept them even from the hope that help might be at hand.

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