Kitabı oku: «The Associate Hermits», sayfa 7
“Well, then,” said the she-guide, “I’m in for assertin’. When my husband was alive there was a good many things I wanted to do, and when I wanted to do a thing or get a thing I kept on sayin’ so; and one day, after I’d been keepin’ on sayin’ so a good while, he says to me, ‘Jane,’ says he, ‘it seems to me that you’re persistin’.’ ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I am, and I intend to be.’ ‘Then you are goin’ to keep on insistin’ on persistin’?’ says he. ‘Yes,’ says I; and then says he, ‘If you keep on insistin’ on persistin’ I’ll be thinkin’ of ’listin’.’ By which he meant goin’ into the army as a regular, and gettin’ rid of me; and as I didn’t want to be rid of him, I stopped persistin’; but now I wish I had persisted, for then he’d ’listed, and most likely would be alive now, through not bein’ shot in the back by a city fool with a gun.”
“I do not believe,” said Mrs. Archibald to her husband, when they had retired to their cabin, “that that young woman is going to be much of a companion for Margery. I think she will prefer your society to that of any of the rest of us. It is very plain that she thinks it is your individuality which has been asserted.”
“Well,” said he, rubbing his spectacles with his handkerchief before putting them away for the night, “don’t let her project her individuality into my sport. That’s all I have to say.”
CHAPTER XV
A NET OF COBWEBS TO CAGE A LION
“I think there’s something besides a lunatic that you are afraid of,” said Martin to Matlack the next morning, as they were preparing breakfast.
“What’s that?” inquired the guide, sharply.
“It’s that fellow they call the bishop,” said Martin. “He put a pretty heavy slur on you. You drove down a stake, and you locked your boat to it, and you walked away as big as if you were the sheriff of the county, and here he comes along, and snaps his fingers at you and your locks, and, as cool as a cucumber, he pulls up the stake and shoves out on the lake, all alone by herself, a young lady that you are paid to take care of and protect from danger.”
“I want you to know, Martin Sanders,” said Matlack, “that I don’t pitch into a man when he’s in his bed, no matter what it is that made him take to his bed or stay there. But I’ll just say to you now, that when he gets up and shows himself, there’ll be the biggest case of bounce in these parts that you ever saw.”
“Bounce!” said Martin to himself, as he turned away. “I have heard so much of it lately that I’d like to see a little.”
Matlack also communed with himself. “He’s awful anxious to get up a quarrel between me and the parson,” he thought. “I wonder if he was too free with his tongue and did get thrashed. He don’t show no signs of it, except he’s so concerned in his mind to see somebody do for the parson what he ain’t able to do himself. But I’ll find out about it! I’ll thrash that fellow in black, and before I let him up I’ll make him tell me what he did to Martin. I’d do a good deal to get hold of something that would take the conceit out of that fellow.”
Mr. Arthur Raybold was a deep-minded person, and sometimes it was difficult for him, with the fathoming apparatus he had on hand, to discover the very bottom of his mind. Now, far below the surface, his thoughts revolved. He had come to the conclusion that he would marry Margery. In the first place, he was greatly attracted by her, and again he considered it would be a most advantageous union. She was charming to look upon, and her mind was so uncramped by conventionalities that it could adapt itself to almost any sphere to which she might direct it. He expected his life-work to be upon the stage, and what an actress Miss Dearborn would make if properly educated – as he could educate her! With this most important purpose in view, why should he waste his time? The Archibalds could not much longer remain in camp. They had limited their holiday to a month, and that was more than half gone. He must strike now.
The first thing to do was to get Clyde out of the way; then he would speak to Mr. Archibald and ask for authority to press his suit, and he would press that suit as few men on earth, he said to himself, would be able to press it. What girl could deny herself to him when he came to her clad not only with his own personal attributes, but with the fervor of a Romeo, the intellectuality of a Hamlet, and the force of an Othello?
The Clyde part of the affair seemed very simple; as his party would of course have their own table Clyde would see his sister at every meal, and as Corona did not care to talk to him, and must talk to somebody, she would be compelled to talk to Clyde, and if she talked to Clyde and looked at him as she always did when she talked to people, he did not see how he could help being attracted by her, and when once that sort of thing began the Margery-field would be open to him.
He excused himself that morning for hurriedly leaving the breakfast-table by saying that he wished to see Mr. Archibald before he started out fishing.
He found that gentleman talking to Matlack. “Can I see you alone, sir?” said Raybold. “I have something of importance I wish to say to you.”
“Very good,” said the other, “for I have something I wish to say to you,” and they retired towards the lake.
“What is it?” inquired Mr. Archibald.
“It is this,” said Raybold, folding his arms as he spoke. “I am a man of but few words. When I have formed a purpose I call upon my actions to express it rather than my speech. I will not delay, therefore, to say to you that I love your ward, and my sole object in seeking this interview is to ask your permission to pay my addresses to her. That permission given, I will attend to the rest.”
“After you have dropped your penny in the slot,” remarked Mr. Archibald. “I must say,” he continued, “that I am rather surprised at the nature of your communication. I supposed you were going to explain your somewhat remarkable conduct in bringing your tent into my camp without asking my permission or even speaking to me about it; but as what you have said is of so much more importance than that breach of good manners I will let the latter drop. But why did you ask my permission to address Miss Dearborn? Why didn’t you go and do it just as you brought your tent here? Did you think that if you had a permit from me for that sort of sport you could warn off trespassers?”
“It was something of that kind,” said Raybold, “although I should not have put it in that trifling way.”
“Then I will remark,” said Mr. Archibald, “that I know nothing of your matrimonial availability, and I do not want to know anything about it. My wife and I brought Miss Dearborn here to enjoy herself in the woods, not to be sought in marriage by strangers. For the present I am her guardian, and as such I say to you that I forbid you to make her a proposal of marriage, or, indeed, to pay her any attentions which she may consider serious. If I see that you do not respect my wishes in this regard, I shall ask you to consider our acquaintance at an end, and shall dispense with your visits to this camp. Have I spoken plainly?”
The knitted brows of Raybold were directed towards the ground. “You have spoken plainly,” he said, “and I have heard,” and with a bow he walked away.
As he approached his tent a smile, intended to be bitter, played about his features.
“A net of cobwebs,” he muttered, “to cage a lion!”
The weather had now grown sultry, the afternoon was very hot, and there was a general desire to lie in the shade and doze. Margery’s plans for a siesta were a little more complicated than those of the others. She longed to lie in a hammock under great trees, surrounded by the leafy screens of the woodlands; to gaze at the blue sky through the loop-holes in the towering branches above her, and to dream of the mysteries of the forest.
“Martin,” said she, to the young guide, “is there a hammock among the things we brought with us?”
His face brightened. “Of course there are hammocks,” he said. “I wonder none of you asked about them before.”
“I never thought of it,” said Margery. “I haven’t had time for lounging, and as for Aunt Harriet, she would not get into one for five dollars.”
“Where shall I hang it?” he asked.
“Not anywhere about here. Couldn’t you find some nice place in the woods, not far away, but where I would not be seen, and might have a little time to myself? If you can, come and tell me quietly where it is.”
“I know what she means,” said Martin to himself. “It’s a shame that she should be annoyed. I can find you just such a place,” he said to Margery. “I will hang the hammock there, and I will take care that nobody else shall know where it is.” And away he went, bounding heart and foot.
In less than a quarter of an hour he returned. “It’s all ready, Miss Dearborn,” he said. “I think I have found a place you will like. It’s generally very close in the woods on a day like this, but there is a little bluff back of us, and at the end of it the woods are open, so that there is a good deal of air there.”
“That is charming,” said Margery, and with a book in her hand she accompanied Martin.
They were each so interested in the hammock business that they walked side by side, instead of one following the other, as had been their custom heretofore.
“Oh, this is a delightful place!” cried Margery. “I can lie here and look down into the very heart of the woods; it is a solitude like Robinson Crusoe’s island.”
“I am glad you like it,” said Martin. “I thought you would. I have put up the hammock strongly, so that you need not be afraid of it; but if there is any other way you want it I can change it. There is not a thing here that can hurt you, and if a little snake should happen along it would be glad to get away from you if you give it a chance. But if you should be frightened or should want anything you have only to call for me. I shall hear you, for I shall be out in the open just at the edge of the woods.”
“Thank you very much,” said Margery; “nothing could be nicer than this, and you did it so quickly.”
He smiled with pleasure as he answered that he could have done it more quickly if it had been necessary; and then he retired slowly, that she might call him back if she thought of anything she wanted.
Margery lay in the hammock, gazing out over the edge of the bluff into the heart of the woods; her closed book was in her hand, and the gentle breeze that shook the leaves around her and disturbed the loose curls about her face was laden with a moist spiciness which made her believe it had been wandering through some fragrant foliage of a kind unknown to her, far away in the depths of the forest, where she could not walk on account of the rocks, the great bushes, and the tall ferns. It was lovely to lie and watch the leafy boughs, which seemed as if they were waving their handkerchiefs to the breeze as it passed.
“I don’t believe,” she said to herself, as she cast her eyes upward towards an open space above her, “that if I were that little white cloud and could float over the whole world and drop down on any spot I chose that I could drop into a lovelier place than this.” Then she brought her gaze again to earth, and her mind went out between the shadowy trunks which stretched away and away and away towards the mysteries of the forest, which must always be mysteries to her because it was impossible for her to get to them and solve them – that is, if she remained awake. But if Master Morpheus should happen by, she might yet know everything – for there are no mysteries which cannot be solved in dreams.
Master Morpheus came, but with him came also Arthur Raybold; not by the little pathway that approached from the direction of the lake, but parting the bushes as if he had been exploring. When she heard footsteps behind her, Margery looked up quickly.
“Mr. Raybold!” she exclaimed. “How on earth did you happen here?”
“I did not happen,” said he, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. “I have been looking for you, and I have had tough work of it. I saw you go into the woods, and I went in also, although some distance below here, and I have had a hard and tiresome job working my way up to you; but I have found you. I knew I should, for I had bent my mind to the undertaking.”
“Well, I wish you hadn’t,” said Margery, in a vexed tone. “I came here to be alone and take a nap, and I wish you would find some other nice place and go and take a nap yourself.”
He smiled deeply. “That would not answer my purpose at all,” said he. “Napping is far from my desires.”
“But I don’t care anything about your desires,” said Margery, in a tone which showed she was truly vexed, “I have pre-empted this place, and I want it to myself. I was just falling into a most delightful doze when you came, and I don’t think you have any right to come here and disturb me.”
“The sense of right, Miss Dearborn,” said he, “comes from the heart, and we do not have to ask other people what it is. My heart has given me the right to come here, and here I am.”
“And what in the name of common-sense are you here for?” said Margery. “Speaking about your heart makes me think you came here to make love to me. Is that it?”
“It is,” said he, “and I wish you to hear me.”
“Mr. Raybold,” said she, her eyes as bright, he thought, as if they had belonged to his sister when she was urging some of her favorite views upon a company, “I won’t listen to one word of such stuff. This is no place for love-making, and I won’t have it. If you want to make love to me you can wait until I go home, and then you can come and speak to my mother about it, and when you have spoken to her you can speak to me, but I won’t listen to it here. Not one word!”
Thus did the indignant craftiness of Margery express itself. “It’s a good deal better,” she thought, “than telling him no, and having him keep on begging and begging.”
“Miss Dearborn,” said Raybold, “what I have to say cannot be postponed. The words within me must be spoken, and I came here to speak them.”
With a sudden supple twist Margery turned herself, hammock and all, and stood on her feet on the ground. “Martin!” she cried, at the top of her voice.
Raybold stepped back astonished. “What is this?” he exclaimed. “Am I to understand – ”
Before he had time to complete his sentence Martin Sanders sprang into the scene.
“What is it?” he exclaimed, with a glare at Raybold, as if he suspected why he had been called.
“Martin,” said Margery, with a good deal of sharpness in her voice, “I want you to take down this hammock and carry it away. I can’t stay here any longer. I thought that at least one quiet place out-of-doors could be found where I would not be disturbed, but it seems there is no such place. Perhaps you can hang the hammock somewhere near our cabin.”
Martin’s face grew very red. “I think,” said he, “that you ought not to be obliged to go away because you have been disturbed. Whoever disturbed you should go away, and not you.”
Now Mr. Raybold’s face also grew red. “There has been enough of this!” he exclaimed. “Guide, you can go where you came from. You are not wanted here. If Miss Dearborn wishes her hammock taken down, I will do it.” Then turning to Margery, he continued: “You do not know what it is I have to say to you. If you do not hear me now, you will regret it all your life. Send this man away.”
“I would very much like to send a man away if I knew how to do it,” said Margery.
“Do it?” cried Martin. “Oh, Miss Dearborn, if you want it done, ask me to do it for you!”
“You!” shouted Raybold, making two steps towards the young guide; then he stopped, for Margery stood in front of him.
“I have never seen two men fight,” said she, “and I don’t say I wouldn’t like it, just once; but you would have to have on boxing-gloves; I couldn’t stand a fight with plain hands, so you needn’t think of it. Martin, take down the hammock just as quickly as you can. And if you want to stay here, Mr. Raybold, you can stay, but if you want to talk, you can talk to the trees.”
Martin heaved a sigh of disappointment, and proceeded to unfasten the hammock from the trees to which it had been tied. For a moment Raybold looked as if he were about to interfere, but there was something in the feverish agility of the young guide which made his close proximity as undesirable as that of a package of dynamite.
Margery turned to leave the place, but suddenly stopped. She would wait until Martin was ready to go with her. She would not leave those two young men alone.
Raybold was very angry. He knew well that such a chance for a private interview was not likely to occur again, and he would not give up. He approached the young girl.
“Margery,” he said, “if you – ”
“Martin,” she cried to the guide, who was now ready to go, “put down that hammock and come here. Now, sir,” she said, turning to Raybold, “let me hear you call me Margery again!”
She waited for about a half a minute, but she was not called by name. Then she and Martin went away. She had nearly reached the cabin before she spoke, and then she turned to the young man and said: “Martin, you needn’t trouble yourself about putting up that hammock now; I don’t want to lie in it. I’m going into the house. I am very much obliged to you for the way you stood by me.”
“Stood by you!” he exclaimed, in a low voice, which seemed struggling in the grasp of something which might or might not be stronger than itself. “You don’t know how glad I am to stand by you, and how I would always – ”
“Thank you,” said Margery; “thank you very much,” and she walked away towards the cabin.
“Oh, dear!” she sighed, as she opened the door and went in.
CHAPTER XVI
A MAN WHO FEELS HIMSELF A MAN
Towards the end of the afternoon, when the air had grown cooler, Mr. Archibald proposed a boating expedition to the lower end of the lake. His boat was large enough for Matlack, the three ladies, and himself, and if the two young men wished to follow, they had a boat of their own.
When first asked to join the boating party Miss Corona Raybold hesitated; she did not care very much about boating; but when she found that if she stayed in camp she would have no one to talk to, she accepted the invitation.
Mr. Archibald took the oars nearest the stern, while Matlack seated himself forward, and this arrangement suited Miss Corona exactly.
The boat kept down the middle of the lake, greatly aided by the current, and Corona talked steadily to Mr. Archibald. Mrs. Archibald, who always wanted to do what was right, and who did not like to be left out of any conversation on important subjects, made now and then a remark, and whenever she spoke Corona turned to her and listened with the kindest attention, but the moment the elder lady had finished, the other resumed her own thread of observation without the slightest allusion to what she had just heard.
As for Mr. Archibald, he seldom said a word. He listened, sometimes his eyes twinkled, and he pulled easily and steadily. Doubtless he had a good many ideas, but none of them was expressed. As for Margery, she leaned back in the stern, and thought that, after all, she liked Miss Raybold better than she did her brother, for the young lady did not speak one word to her, nor did she appear to regard her in any way.
“But how on earth,” thought Margery, “she can float over this beautiful water and under this lovely sky, with the grandeur of the forest all about her, and yet pay not the slightest attention to anything she sees, but keep steadily talking about her own affairs and the society she belongs to, I cannot imagine. She might as well live in a cellar and have pamphlets and reformers shoved down to her through the coal-hole.”
Messrs. Clyde and Raybold accompanied the larger boat in their own skiff. It was an unwieldy craft, with but one pair of oars, and as the two young men were not accustomed to rowing together, and as Mr. Raybold was not accustomed to rowing at all and did not like it, Mr. Clyde pulled the boat. But, do what he could, it was impossible for him to get near the other boat. Matlack, who was not obliged to listen to Miss Corona, kept his eye upon the following skiff, and seemed to fear a collision if the two boats came close together, for if Clyde pulled hard he pulled harder. Arthur Raybold was not satisfied.
“I thought you were a better oarsman,” he said to the other; “but now I suppose we shall not come near them until we land.”
But the Archibald party did not land. Under the guidance of Matlack they swept slowly around the lower end of the lake; they looked over the big untenanted camp-ground there; they stopped for a moment to gaze into the rift in the forest through which ran the stream which connected this lake with another beyond it, and then they rowed homeward, keeping close to the farther shore, so as to avoid the strength of the current.
Clyde, who had not reached the end of the lake, now turned and determined to follow the tactics of the other boat and keep close to the shore, but on the side nearest to the camp. This exasperated Raybold.
“What are you trying to do?” he said. “If you keep in the middle we may get near them, and why should we be on one side of the lake and they on the other?”
“I want to get back as soon as they do,” said Clyde, “and I don’t want to pull against the current.”
“Stop!” said Raybold. “If you are tired, let me have the oars.”
Harrison Clyde looked for a minute at his companion, and then deliberately changed the course of the boat and rowed straight towards the shore, paying no attention whatever to the excited remonstrances of Raybold. He beached the boat at a rather poor landing-place among some bushes, and then, jumping out, he made her fast.
“What do you mean?” cried Raybold, as he scrambled on shore. “Is she leaking more than she did? What is the matter?”
“She is not leaking more than usual,” said the other, “but I am not going to pull against that current with you growling in the stern. I am going to walk back to camp.”
In consequence of this resolution the two young men reached Camp Rob about the same time that the Archibald boat touched shore, and at least an hour before they would have arrived had they remained in their boat.
The party was met by Mrs. Perkenpine, bearing letters and newspapers. A man had arrived from Sadler’s in their absence, and he had brought the mail. Nearly every one had letters; there was even something for Martin. Standing where they had landed, seated on bits of rock, on the grass, or on camp-chairs, all read their letters.
While thus engaged a gentleman approached the party from the direction of Camp Roy. He was tall, well built, handsomely dressed in a suit of light-brown tweed, and carried himself with a buoyant uprightness. A neat straw hat with a broad ribbon shaded his smooth-shaven face, which sparkled with cordial good-humor. A blue cravat was tied tastefully under a broad white collar, and in his hand he carried a hickory walking-stick, cut in the woods, but good enough for a city sidewalk. Margery was the first to raise her eyes at the sound of the quickly approaching footsteps.
“Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed, and then everybody looked up.
For a moment the new-comer was gazed upon in silence. From what gigantic bandbox could this well-dressed stranger have dropped? Then, with a loud laugh, Mr. Archibald cried, “The bishop!”
No wonder there had not been instant recognition. The loose, easy-fitting clothes gave no hint of redundant plumpness; no soiled shovel-hat cast a shadow over the smiling face, and a glittering shirt front banished all thought of gutta-percha.
“Madam,” exclaimed the bishop, raising his hat and stepping quickly towards Mrs. Archibald, “I cannot express the pleasure I feel in meeting you again. And as for you, sir,” holding out his hand to Mr. Archibald, “I have no words in which to convey my feelings. Look upon a man, sir, who feels himself a man, and then remember from what you raised him. I can say no more now, but I can never forget what you have done,” and as he spoke he pressed Mr. Archibald’s hand with an honest fervor, which distorted for a moment the features of that gentleman.
From one to the other of the party the bishop glanced, as he said, “How glad, how unutterably glad, I am to be again among you!” Turning his eyes towards Miss Raybold, he stopped. That young lady had put down the letter she was reading, and was gazing at him through her spectacles with calm intensity. “This lady,” said the bishop, turning towards Raybold, “is your sister, I presume? May I have the honor?”
Raybold looked at him without speaking. Here was an example of the silly absurdity of throwing pearls before swine. He had never wanted to have anything to do with the fellow when he was in the gutter, and he wanted nothing to do with him now.
With a little flush on her face Mrs. Archibald rose.
“Miss Raybold,” she said, “let me present to you” – and she hesitated for a moment – “the gentleman we call the bishop. I think you have heard us speak of him.”
“Yes,” said Miss Raybold, rising, with a charming smile on her handsome face, and extending her hand, “I have heard of him, and I am very glad to meet him.”
“I have also heard of you,” said the bishop, as he stood smiling beside Corona’s camp-chair, “and I have regretted that I have been the innocent means of preventing you for a time from occupying your brother’s camp.”
“Oh, do not mention that,” said Corona, sweetly. “I walked over there yesterday, and I think it is a great deal pleasanter here, so you have really done me a favor. I am particularly glad to see you, because, from the little I have heard said about you, I think you must agree with some of my cherished opinions. For one thing, I am quite certain you favor the assertion of individuality; your actions prove that.”
“Really,” said the bishop, seating himself near her, “I have not given much thought to the subject; but I suppose I have asserted my individuality. If I have, however, I have done it indefinitely. Everybody about me having some definite purpose in life, and I having none, I am, in a negative way, a distinctive individual. It is a pity I am so different from other people, but – ”
“No, it is not a pity,” interrupted Corona, the color coming into her cheeks and a brighter light into her eyes. “Our individuality is a sacred responsibility. It is given to us for us to protect and encourage – I may say, to revere. It is a trust for which we should be called to account by ourselves, and we shall be false and disloyal to ourselves if we cannot show that we have done everything in our power for the establishment and recognition of our individuality.”
“It delights me to hear you speak in that way,” exclaimed the bishop. “It encourages and cheers me. We are what we are; and if we can be more fully what we are than we have been, then we are more truly ourselves than before.”
“And what can be nobler,” cried Corona, “than to be, in the most distinctive sense of the term, ourselves?”
Mr. and Mrs. Archibald walked together towards their cabin.
“I want to be neighborly and hospitable,” said he, “but it seems to me that, now that the way is clear for Miss Raybold to move her tent to her own camp and set up house-keeping there, we should not be called upon to entertain her, and, if we want to enjoy ourselves in our own way, we can do it without thinking of her.”
“We shall certainly not do it,” said his wife, “if we do think of her. I am very much disappointed in her. She is not a companion at all for Margery; she never speaks to her; and, on the other hand, I should think you would wish she would never speak to you.”
“Well,” said her husband, “that feeling did grow upon me somewhat this afternoon. Up to a certain point she is amusing.”
Here he was interrupted by Mrs. Perkenpine, who planted herself before him.
“I s’pose you think I didn’t do right,” she said, “’cause, when that big bundle came it had your name on it; but I knew it was clothes, and that they was for that man in our camp, and so I took them to him myself. I heard Phil say that the sooner that man was up and dressed, the better it would be for all parties; and as Martin had gone off, and there wasn’t nobody to take his clothes to him, I took them to him, and that’s the long and short of it.”
“I wondered how he got them,” said Mr. Archibald, “but I am glad you carried them to him.” Then, speaking to his wife, he added, “It may be a good thing that I gave him a chance to assert his individuality.”
