CHAPTER XVA 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. Archibaldand 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 actionsto 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 respectmy 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, butwhere 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 stretchedaway 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, andI 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 feeton 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 shewas 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 XVIA 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 observationwithout 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,” hesaid 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 hescrambled 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 uponin 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 tohave 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. Itis 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 theother 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.”
CHAPTER XVIIMRS. PERKENPINE ASSERTS HER INDIVIDUALITY
About half an hour after the beginning of the conversation between the bishop and Miss Corona, Mrs. Perkenpine came to the latter and informed her that supper was ready, and three times after that first announcement did she repeat the information. At last the bishop rose and said he would not keep Miss Raybold from her meal.
“Will you not join us?” she asked. “I shall be glad to have you do so.”
The bishop hesitated for a moment, and then he accompanied Corona.
As Mrs. Perkenpine turned from the camp cooking-stove, a long-handled pan, well filled with slices of hot meat, in her hand, she stood for a moment amazed. Slowly approaching the little table outside of the tent were the bishop and Miss Raybold, and glancing beyond them towards the lake, she saw Clyde and Raybold, to whom she had yelled that supper was ready, the one with his arms folded, gazing out over the water, and the other strolling backward and forward, as if he had thought of going to his supper, but had not quite made up his mind to it.
Mrs. Perkenpine’s face grew red. “They are waitin’ for a chance to speak to that Archibaldgal,” she thought. “Well, let them wait. And she’s bringing him! She needn’t s’pose I don’t know him. I’ve seen him splittin’ wood at Sadler’s, and I don’t cook for sech.” So saying, she strode to some bushes a little back of the stove, and dashed the panful of meat behind them. Then she returned, and seizing the steaming coffee-pot, she poured its contents on the ground. Then she took up a smaller pan, containing some fried potatoes, hot and savory, and these she threw after the meat.
The bishop and Corona now reached the table and seated themselves. Mrs. Perkenpine, her face as hard and immovable as the trunk of an oak, approached, and placed before them some slices of cold bread, some butter, and two glasses of water.
Still earnestly talking, her eyes sometimes dimmed with tears of excitement as she descanted upon her favorite theories, Corona began to eat what was before her. She buttered a slice of bread, and if the bishop chanced to say anything she ate some of it. She drank some water, and she talked and talked and talked. She did not know what she was eating. It might have been a Lord Mayor’s dinner or a beggar’s crust; her mind took no cognizance of such an unimportant matter. As for her companion, he knew very well what he was eating, and as he gazed about him, and saw that there were no signs of anything more, his heart sank lower and lower; but he ate slice after slice of bread, for he was hungry, and he hoped that when the two young men came to the table they would call for more substantial food.
But long before they arrived Corona finished her meal and rose.
“Now that we have had our supper,” she said, “let us go where we shall not be annoyed by the smell of food, and continue our conversation.”
“Is it possible,” thought the bishop, “that she can be annoyed by the smell of hot meat, potatoes, and coffee? I suppose the delicious odor comes from the other supper-table. Heavens! Why wasn’t I asked there?”
There was a dreadful storm when Raybold and Clyde came to the table; but Mrs. Perkenpine remained hard and immovable through it all.
“Your sister and that tramp has been here,” said she, “and this is all there is left. If you keep your hogs in your house, you can’t expect to count on your victuals.”
Some more coffee was made, and that, with bread, composed the young men’s supper.
When Arthur Raybold had finished his meal, he walked to the spot where Corona and the bishop were conversing, and stood there silently. He was afraid to interrupt his sister by speaking to her, but he thought that his presence might have an effect upon her companion. It did have an effect, for the bishop seized the opportunity created by the arrival of a third party, excused himself, and departed at the first break in Corona’s flow of words.
“I wish, Arthur,” she said, “that when you see I am engaged in a conversation, you would wait at least a reasonable time before interrupting it.”
“A reasonable time!” said Raybold, with a laugh. “I like that! But I came here to interruptyour conversation. Do you know who that fellow is you were talking to? He’s a common, good-for-nothing tramp. He goes round splitting wood for his meals. Clyde and I kept him here to cook our meals because we had no servant, and he’s been in bed for days because he had no clothes to wear. Now you are treating him as if he were a gentleman, and you actually brought him to our table, where, like the half-starved cur that he is, he has eaten up everything fit to eat that we were to have for our supper.”
“He did not eat all of it,” said Corona, “for I ate some myself; and if he is the good-for-nothing tramp and the other things you call him, I wish I could meet with more such tramps. I tell you, Arthur, that if you were to spend the next five years in reading and studying, you could not get into your mind one-tenth of the serious information, the power to reason intelligently upon your perceptions, the ability to collate, compare, and refer to their individual causes the impressions—”
“Oh, bosh!” said her brother. “What I want to know is, are you going to make friends with that man and invite him to our table?”
“I shall invite him if I see fit,” said she. “He is an extremely intelligent person.”
“Well,” answered he, “if you do I shall have a separate table,” and he walked away.
As soon as he had left Corona, the bishop repaired to the Archibalds’ cooking-tent, where he saw Matlack at work.
“I have come,” he said, with a pleasant smile,“to ask a very great favor. Would it be convenient for you to give me something to eat? Anything in the way of meat, hot or cold, and some tea or coffee, as I see there is a pot still steaming on your stove. I have had an unlucky experience. You know I have been preparing my own meals at the other camp, but to-day, when Mrs. Perkenpine brought me my clothes, she carried away with her all the provisions that had been left there. I supped, it is true, with Miss Raybold, but her appetite is so delicate and her fare so extremely simple that I confidentially acknowledge that I am half starved.”
During these remarks Matlack had stood quietly gazing at the bishop. “Do you see that pile of logs and branches there?” said he; “that’s the firewood that’s got to be cut for to-morrow, which is Sunday, when we don’t want to be cuttin’ wood; and if you’ll go to work and cut it into pieces to fit this stove, I’ll give you your supper. You can go to the other camp and sleep where you have been sleepin’, if you want to, and in the mornin’ I’ll give you your breakfast. I ’ain’t got no right to give you Mr. Archibald’s victuals, but what you eat I’ll pay for out of my own pocket, considerin’ that you’ll do my work. Then to-morrow I’ll give you just one hour after you’ve finished your breakfast to get out of this camp altogether, entirely out of my sight. I tried to have you sent away before, but other people took you up, and so I said no more; but now things are different. When a man pulls up what I’ve drove down, and sets loose what I’ve locked up, and the same as snaps his fingers in my face whenI’m attendin’ to my business, then I don’t let that man stay in my camp.”
“Excuse me,” said the bishop, “but in case I should not go away within the time specified, what would be your course?”
In a few brief remarks, inelegant but expressive, the guide outlined his intentions of taking measures which would utterly eliminate the physical energy of the other.
“I haven’t taken no advantage of you,” he said, “I haven’t come down on you when you hadn’t no clothes to go away in; and now that you’ve got good clothes, I don’t want to spile them if I can help it; but they’re not goin’ to save you—mind my words. What I’ve said I’ll stick to.”
“Mr. Matlack,” said the bishop, “I consider that you are entirely correct in all your positions. As to that unfortunate affair of the boat, I had intended coming to you and apologizing most sincerely for my share in it. It was an act of great foolishness, but that does not in the least excuse me. I apologize now, and beg that you will believe that I truly regret having interfered with your arrangements.”
“That won’t do!” exclaimed the guide. “When a man as much as snaps his fingers in my face, it’s no use for him to come and apologize. That’s not what I want.”
“Nevertheless,” said the bishop, “you will pardon me if I insist upon expressing my regrets. I do that for my own sake as well as yours; but we will drop that subject. When you ask me to cut wood to pay for my meals, you are entirelyright, and I honor your sound opinion upon this subject. I will cut the wood and earn my meals, but there is one amendment to your plan which I would like to propose. To-morrow is Sunday; for that reason we should endeavor to make the day as quiet and peaceable as possible, and we should avoid everything which may be difficult of explanation or calculated to bring about an unpleasant difference of opinion among other members of the party. Therefore, will you postpone the time at which you will definitely urge my departure until Monday morning?”
“Well,” said Matlack, “now I come to think of it, it might be well not to kick up a row on Sunday, and I will put it off until Monday morning; but mind, there’s no nonsense about me. What I say I mean, and on Monday morning you march of your own accord, or I’ll attend to the matter myself.”
“Very good,” said the bishop; “thank you very much. To-morrow I will consider your invitation to leave this place, and if you will come to Camp Roy about half-past six on Monday morning I will then give you my decision. Will that hour suit you?”
“All right,” said Matlack, “you might as well make it a business matter. It’s going to be business on my side, I’d have you know.”
“Good—very good,” said the bishop, “and now let me get at that wood.”
So saying, he put down his cane, took off his hat, his coat, his waistcoat, his collar, and his cravat and his cuffs; he rolled up his sleeves, he turned up the bottoms of his trousers, and then taking an axe, he set to work.
In a few minutes Martin arrived on the scene. “What’s up now?” said he.
“He’s cuttin’ wood for his meals,” replied Matlack.
“I thought you were going to bounce him as soon as he got up?”
“That’s put off until Monday morning,” said Matlack. “Then he marches. I’ve settled that.”
“Did he agree?” asked Martin.
“’Tain’t necessary for him to agree; he’ll find that out Monday morning.”
Martin stood and looked at the bishop as he worked.
“I wish you would get him to cut wood every day,” said he. “By George, how he makes that axe fly!”
When the bishop finished his work he drove his axe-head deep into a stump, washed his hands and his face, resumed the clothing he had laid aside, and then sat down to supper. There was nothing stingy about Matlack, and the wood-chopper made a meal which amply compensated him for the deficiencies of the Perkenpine repast.
When he had finished he hurried to the spot where the party was in the habit of assembling around the camp-fire. He found there some feebly burning logs, and Mr. Clyde, who sat alone, smoking his pipe.
“What is the matter?” asked the bishop. “Where are all our friends?”
“‘WHERE ARE ALL OUR FRIENDS?’”
“‘WHERE ARE ALL OUR FRIENDS?’”
“I suppose they are all in bed,” said Clyde, “with the bedclothes pulled over their heads—that is, except one, and I suspect she is talking in her sleep. They were all here as usual, and Mr. Archibald thought he would break the spell by telling a fishing story. He told me he was going to try to speak against time; but it wasn’t of any use. She just slid into the middle of his remarks as a duck slides into the water, and then she began an oration. I really believe she did not know that any one else was talking.”
“That may have been the case,” said the bishop; “she has a wonderful power of self-concentration.”
“Very true,” said Clyde, “and this time she concentrated herself so much upon herself that the rest of us got away, one by one, and when all the others had gone she went. Then, when I found she really had gone, I came back. By-the-way, bishop,” he continued, “there is something I would like to do, and I want you to help me.”
“Name it,” said the other.
“I am getting tired of the way the Raybolds are trespassing on the good-nature of the Archibalds, and, whatever they do, I don’t intend to let them make me trespass any longer. I haven’t anything to do with Miss Raybold, but the other tent belongs as much to me as it does to her brother, and I am going to take it back to our own camp. And what is more, I am going to have my meals there. I don’t want that wooden-headed Mrs. Perkenpine to cook for me.”
“How would you like me to do it?” asked the bishop, quickly.
“That would be fine,” said Clyde. “I will help, and we will set up house-keeping there again, andif Raybold doesn’t choose to come and live in his own camp he can go wherever he pleases. I am not going to have him manage things for me. Don’t you think that you and I can carry that tent over?”
“With ease!” exclaimed the bishop. “When do you want to move—Monday morning?”
“Yes,” said Clyde, “after breakfast.”