"Tired?" queried Mr. Bob Jonstone, with some indignation. "I'm not a bit tired. I haven't had enough exercise to keep me quiet. And if it wasn't your turn to make the fire, your privilege, and your prerogative, I'd insist on chopping the wood myself. No," he said, leaning back luxuriously, "I find it very hard to keep still. This walking on the level is child's play. What I need to keep me in good shape is mountains to climb."
"Like those we have at home," said Colonel Meredith, and if he didn't actually wink at Maud, who was arranging some chops on a broiler, he made one eye smaller than the other.
"What's wrong withthismountain?" asked Maud.
"Why, we are only half-way up, and the real view is from the top!"
"Of course," said Colonel Meredith, "if you want to see the view, don't let us stop you. We'll wait for you. Won't we, Miss Maud?"
She nodded, her eyes shining with mischief.
"But," the colonel continued, "Bob is a bluff. He's had all the climbing he can stand. Nothing but a chest full of treasure or a maiden in distress would take him a step farther."
"After lunch," said Mr. Jonstone, "I shall."
"Do it now! Lunch won't be ready for an hour. Any kind of a walker could make the top of the mountain and be back in that time. But I'll bet you anything you like that you can't."
"You will? I'll bet you fifty dollars."
"Done!"
Mr. Jonstone leaped to his feet in a business-like way, waved his hand to them, and started briskly off and up along the trail by which they had come, and which ended only at the very top of the mountain. It wasn't that he wanted any more exercise. He wanted to get away for a while to think things over. He had learned on that day's excursion, or thought he had, that two is company and that three isn't. The pleasant interchangeableness of the trio's relations seemed suddenly to have undergone a subtle change. It was as if Maud and Colonel Meredith had suddenly found that they liked each other a little better than they liked him.
So it wasn't a man in search of exercise or eager to win a bet who was hastening toward thetop of a mountain, but a child who had just discovered that dolls are stuffed with sawdust. He suffered a little from jealousy, and a little from anger. He could not have specified what they had done to him that morning, and it may have been his imagination alone that was to blame, but they had made him feel, or he had made himself feel, like a guest who is present, not because he is wanted but because for some reason or other he had to be asked.
He walked himself completely out of breath and that did his mind good. Resting before making a final spurt to the mountain-top, he heard men's voices shouting and hallooing in the forest. The sounds carried him back to certain coon and rabbit hunts in his native state, and he wondered what these men could be hunting. And having recovered his breath, he went on.
He came suddenly in view of a great round pool of water in the midst of which was a tiny island, thickly wooded. Just in front of him a fire burned low on a beach of white sand.
Upon the beach, his back to Jonstone, stood a tall, thin man who appeared to be gazing at the island. Suddenly this man began to shout aloud:
"She's on the island! She's on the island!"
From the woods came the sound of crashings,scramblings, and oaths, and, one by one, three fat men, very sweaty and crimson in the face, came reeling out on the beach, and ranged themselves with the thin man, and looked drunkenly toward the island.
"She's hiding on the island, the cute thing," said the thin man.
"Did you see her?"
"I saw the bushes move. That's where she is."
"How deep's the water?"
"I'll tell you in about a minute," said the thin man. He threw his coat from him, and, sitting down with a sudden lurch, began to unlace his boots.
"Maybe you don't know it," he said, "but I'm some swimmer, I am."
There was a moment of silence and then there came from the island a voice that sent a thrill through Mr. Bob Jonstone from head to foot. The voice was like frightened music with a sob in it.
"Won't you please go away!"
"Good God," he thought, "they're hunting a woman!"
The drunken men had answered that sobbing appeal with a regular view-halloo of drunken laughter.
Mr. Bob Jonstone stepped slowly forward. Histhin face had a bluish, steely look; and his eyes glinted wickedly like a rattlesnake's. Being one against four, he made no declaration of war. He came upon them secretly from behind. And first he struck a thin neck just below a leathery ear, and then a fat neck.
He was not a strong man physically. But high-strung nerves and cold, collected loathing and fury are powerful weapons.
The thin man and the fat man with the whispering voice lay face down on the beach and passed from insensibility into stupefied, drunken sleep. But with the other two, Mr. Jonstone had a bad time of it, for he had broken a bone in his right hand and the pain was excruciating. Often, during that battle, he thought of the deadly automatic in his pocket. But if he used that, it meant that a woman's name would be printed in the newspaper.
The fat men fought hard with drunken fury. Their strength was their weight, and they were always coming at him from opposite sides. But an empty whiskey bottle caught Mr. Jonstone's swift eye and made a sudden end of what its contents had begun. He hit five times and then stood alone, among the fallen, a bottle neck of brown glass in his hand.
Then he lifted his voice and spoke aloud, as if to the island:
"They'll not trouble you now. What else can I do?"
"God bless you for doing what you've done! I'm a fool girl, and I thought I was all alone and I went in swimming, and they came and I hid on the island. And I—I haven't got my things with me!"
"Couldn't you get ashore without being seen? These beasts won't look. And I won't look. You can trust me, can't you?"
"When you tell me that nobody is looking I'll come ashore."
"Nobody is looking now."
He heard a splash and sounds as of strong swimming. And he was dying to look. He took out his little automatic and cocked it, and he said to himself: "If you do look, Bob, you get shot."
Ten minutes passed.
"Are you all right?" he called.
"Yes, thank you, all right now. But how can I thank you? I don't want you to see me, if you don't mind. I don't want you to know who I am. But I'm the gratefulest girl that ever lived; and I'm going home now, wiser than when I came, and, listen——"
"I'm listening."
"I think I'd almost die for you. There!"
Mr. Jonstone's hair fairly bristled with emotion.
"But am I never to see you, never to know your name?"
The answer came from farther off.
"Yes, I think so. Some time."
"Do you promise that?"
Silence—and then:
"Ialmostpromise."
Having assured himself that the drunken men were not dead, Mr. Jonstone sighed like a furnace and started down the mountain.
His hand hurt him like the devil, but the pain was first cousin to delight.
The Camp was much concerned to hear of poor Mr. Jonstone's accident. A round stone, he said, had rolled suddenly under his foot and precipitated him down a steep pitch of path. He had put out his hands to save his face and, it seemed, broken a bone in one of them. And at that, the attempted rescue of his face had not been an overwhelming success.
It was not until the doctor had come and gone that Mr. Jonstone told his cousin what had really happened. Colonel Meredith was much excited and intrigued by the narrative.
"And you've no idea who she was?" he asked.
"No, Mel; I've thought that the voice was familiar. I've thought that it wasn't. It was a very well-bred Northern voice—but agitated probably out of its natural intonations. Voices are queer things. A man might not recognize his own mother's voice at a time when he was not expecting to hear it."
"Voices," said Colonel Meredith, "are beautiful things. This wasn't a motherly sort of voice, was it?"
"But it might be," said Mr. Jonstone gently. "I wonder if they've anything in this place to make a fellow sleep. Bromide isn't much good when you've a sure-enough sharp pain."
"You feel mighty uncomfortable, don't you, Bob?"
The invalid nodded. He was pale as a sheet, and he could not keep still. He had received considerable physical punishment and his entire nervous system was quivering and jumping.
"I'll see if anybody's got anything," said Colonel Meredith, and he went straight to the office, where he found Maud Darling and Eve.
"My cousin is feeling like the deuce," he said. "He won't sleep all night if we don't give him something to make him. Do you know of any one that's got anything of that sort—morphine, for instance?"
"The best thing will be to take theStreakand get some from the doctor," said Maud. "Let's all go."
"I think I won't," said Eve, looking wonderfully cool and serene. "But I'll walk down to the float and see you off. What a pity for a man to get laid up by an accident that might have been avoided by a little attention!"
Colonel Meredith stiffened.
"I am sorry to contradict a lady," he said, "but my cousin has given me the particulars of his accident, and it was of a nature that could hardly have been avoided by a man. I think, Miss Maud, if you will order a launch, I had better tell my cousin where I am going, in case he should feel that he was being neglected."
"Don't bother to do that," said Eve. "I'll get word to him."
"Oh, thank you so much, will you?"
"He's lying down, I suppose."
"Yes; he has retired for the night."
"I'll send one of the men," said Eve, "or Sam Langham."
So they went one way and Eve went the other, walking very quickly and smiling in the night.
"Mr. Jonstone—oh, Mr. Jonstone! Can you hear me?"
With a sort of shudder of wonder Mr. Jonstone sat up in his bed.
"Yes," he said, "I do hear you—unless I am dreaming."
"You're not dreaming. You are in great pain, owing to an accident which could hardly have been avoided by a man, and can't sleep."
"I am in no pain now."
"Colonel Meredith has gone to Carrytown forsomething to make you sleep, so you aren't to fret and feel neglected if he doesn't come back to you at once."
"Just the same it's a horrible feeling—to be all alone."
"But if some one—any one were to stay within call——?"
"Ifyouwere to stay within call it would make all the difference in the world."
"You don't know who I am, do you?"
"I don't know what you look like, and I don't know your name. But I know who you are. And once upon a time—long years ago—you promised, you half promised, to tell me the other things."
"My name is a very, very old name, and I look like a lot of other people. But you say you know who I am. Who am I?"
Mr. Bob Jonstone laughed softly.
"It's enough," said he, "that I know. But are you comfortable out there? You're on the porch, aren't you?"
"No; I'm standing on the ground and resting my lazy forehead against the porch railing."
"I'd feel easier if you came on the porch and made yourself comfortable in a chair, just outside my window. And we could talk easier."
"But you're not supposed to talk."
"Listening would be good for me."
There was a sound of light steps and of a chair being dragged.
"I wish you wouldn't sit just round the corner," said Mr. Jonstone presently. "If you sat before the window, sideways, I could see your profile against the sky."
"I'm doing very well where I am, thank you."
"But, please, why shouldn't I see you? Why are you so embarrassed at me?"
"Wouldn't you be embarrassed if you were a girl and had been through the adventure I went through? Wouldn't you be a little embarrassed to see the man who helped you, and look him in the face?"
"Don't you ever want me to see you? Because, if you don't, I will go away from this place in the morning and never come back."
"Somehow, that doesn't appeal to me very much either."
"I am glad," said Mr. Jonstone quietly.
"How does your hand feel?"
"Which hand?"
"The one you hurt."
"It feels very happy, and the other hand feels very jealous of it."
"Seriously—are you having a pretty bad time?"
"I am having the time of my life—seriously—the time that lucky men always have once in their lives."
"Are you very impatient for the morphine?"
"I shall not take it when it comes. It is far better knowing what one knows, remembering what one remembers, and looking forward to what a presumptuous fool cannot help but look forward to—it is far better to keep awake; to lie peacefully in the dark, knowing, remembering, and looking forward."
"And just what are you looking forward to?"
"To a long life and a happy one; to the sounds of a voice; to a sudden coming to life of the whole 'Oxford Book of Verse'; to seeing a face."
There was a long silence.
"Are you there?"
"Yes; but you mustn't talk."
"I think you are tired. Please don't stay any more if you are tired."
"I'm not tired."
"Then perhaps you are bored."
"I'm not bored."
"Then what are you?"
"You keep quiet."
When, at last, Colonel Meredith came, important with morphine and the doctor's instructions, he found his cousin Mr. Bob Jonstone sleeping very quietly and peacefully, a much dog-eared copy of the "Oxford Book of Verse" clasped to his breast.
Unfortunately the colonel, after putting out the light again, bumped into a table, and Mr. Jonstone waked.
"That you, Mel?"
"Yes, Bob; sorry I waked you. Did Miss Darling send word explaining that I should be quite a while coming back?"
"Which Miss Darling?"
"Which? Why, Miss Eve."
"Yes, she sent word."
"And how have you been?"
"I took a turn for the better shortly after you left. A little while ago I lighted a candle, and read a little and got sleepy. And now I think I'll go to sleep again."
"You don't need the morphine?"
"No, Mel. Thank you. Good-night."
"Good-night."
"Mel?"
"What is it?"
"Isn't Eve about the oldest name you know?"
"Oldest, I guess, except Adam and Lilith. You go to sleep."
And Colonel Meredith tiptoed out of the room, murmuring: "Seems to be a little shaky in his upper stories."
A point of land just across the lake from the camp belonged to the Darlings' mother, the Princess Oducalchi. One night the light of fires and lanterns appeared on this point and the next morning it was seen to be studded here and there with pale-brown tents. The Darlings were annoyed to think that any one should trespass on so large a scale on some one else's land. In a code of laws shot to pieces with class legislation, trespassers are, of course, exempt from punishment; their presence and depredations in one's private melon-patch are none the less disagreeable, and Arthur Darling, as his mother's representative, was peculiarly enraged.
Arthur, in his idle moments, when, for instance, he was not studying the webs of spiders or classifying the cries of frogs, sometimes let his mind run on politics and the whole state of the Union. In such matters, of course, he was only a tyro. Why should the puny and prejudiced population of Texas have two votes in the Senate when the hordes of New York have but two? Why, ina popular form of government, should the minority do the ruling? Why should not a hard-working rich man have an equal place in the sun with a man who, through laziness and a moral nature twisted like a pretzel, remains poor? Why should education be forced on children in a country where education, which means good manners and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, amounts practically to disfranchisement?
Arthur, in his political ruminations, could never get beyond such questions as these. If A has paid for and owns a piece of land, why is it not A's to enjoy, rather than B's, whose sole claim thereto is greater strength of body than A, and the desire to possess those things which are not his?
At least, Arthur could row across to the point and protest in his mother's name. If the trespassers were gentlefolk who imagined themselves to have camped upon public land, they would, of course, offer to go and to pay all damages—in which event, Arthur would invite them to stay as long as they pleased, only begging that they would not set the woods on fire. If, however, the trespassers belonged to one of the privileged classes for whose benefit the laws are made and continued, he would simply be abused roundly and perhaps vilely. He would then take a thrashing at thehands of superior numbers, and the incident would be closed.
Colonel Meredith, seeing Arthur about to embark on his mission, offered help and comfort in the emergency.
"Just you wait till I fetch my rifle," he said; "and if there's any trifling, we'll shoot them up."
"Shoot them up!" exclaimed Arthur. "If we shot them up, we'd go from here to prison and from prison to the electric chair."
"In South Carolina," Colonel Meredith protested, "if a man comes on our land and we tell him to get off and he won't, we drill a hole in him."
"And that's one of the best things about the South," said Arthur. "But we do things differently in the North. If a man comes on my land and I tell him to get off and he says he won't, then I have the right to put him off, using as much force as is necessary. And if he is twice as big as I am and there are three or four of him, you can see, without using glasses, how the matter must end."
"Then all you are out for is to take a licking?"
"That is my only privilege under the law. But I hope I shall not have to avail myself of it. Where there are so many tents there must bemoney. Where there is money there are possessions, and where there are possessions, there are the same feelings about property that you and I have."
"Still," said Colonel Meredith, "I wish you'd take me along and our guns. There is always the chance of managing matters so that fatalities may be construed into acts of self-defense."
"Get behind me, you man of blood!" exclaimed Arthur, laughing, and he leaped into a canoe, and with a part of the same impulse sent it flying far out from the float. Then, standing, he started for the brown tents with easy, powerful strokes, very earnest for the speedy accomplishment of a disagreeable duty. That anything really pleasant might come of his expedition never entered his head.
"Arthur gone to put them off?"
"Why, yes! Good-morning, Miss Gay."
"Good-morning, yourself, Colonel Meredith, and many of them. Want to look?"
"Thank you."
Colonel Meredith focussed the glasses upon the brown tents.
"What do you make them out to be?"
"I can make out a sort of nigger carrying tea into one of the tents. And there's a young ladyin black. She seems to be walking down to the shore to meet your brother. And now she's waving her hand to him."
"The impudent thing," exclaimed Gay. "What's my brother doing?"
"He's paddling as if he expected to cross a hundred yards of water in a second. If the young lady comes any closer to the water, she'll get wet."
Suddenly blushing crimson, he thrust the field-glasses back into Gay's hands, and cried with complete conviction that he was "blessed."
In the bright field of magnification, hastily focussed to her own vision, Gay beheld her brother and the young woman in black tightly locked in each other's arms.
To Arthur, half-way across the lake, considering just what he should say to the trespassers, the sudden sight of the person whom of all persons in the world he least expected and most wanted to see was a staggering physical shock. He almost fell out of his canoe. And if he had done that he might very likely have drowned, so paralyzing in effect were those first moments of unbelievable joy and astonishment. Then she waved her hand to him and swiftly crossed the beach, and he began to paddle like a madman. When the canoe beached with sudden finality, Arthur simply made a flying leap to the shore and caught her in his arms.
Then he held her at arm's length, and if eyes could eat, these would have been the last moments upon earth of a very lovely young woman.
Then a sort of horror of what he had done and of what he was doing seized him. His hands dropped to his sides and the pupils of his eyes became pointed with pain. But she said:
"It's all right, Arthur; don't look like that. My husband is dead."
"Dead?" said Arthur, his face once more joyous as an angel's. "Thank God for that!"
And why not thank God when some worthless, cruel man dies? And why not write the truth about him upon his tombstone instead of the conventional lies?
"But why didn't you write to me?" demanded Arthur.
"It had been such a long time since we saw each other. How did I know that you still cared?"
"But how could I stop caring—about you?"
"Couldn't you?"
"Why, I didn't even try," said Arthur. "I just gave it up as a bad job. But how, in the name of all that's good and blessed, do you happen to be in this particular place at this particular time? Did you, by any chance, come by way of the heavens in a 'sweet chariot'? I came to eject trespassers, and I find you!"
"And I came to spy on you, Arthur, and to find out if you still cared. And if you didn't, I was going to tie a stone round my neck and lie down in the lake. Of course, if I'm a trespasser——"
They had moved slowly away from the shore toward the tents. From one of these a languid, humorous voice that made Arthur start hailedthem. And through the fly of the tent was thrust a beautiful white hand and the half of a beautiful white arm.
"I can't come out, Arthur," said the voice; "but good-morning to you, and how's the family?"
"Of all people in the world," exclaimed Arthur; "my own beautiful mamma!" And he sprang to the extended hand and clasped it and kissed it.
"Your excellent stepfather," said the voice, "is out walking up an appetite for breakfast. I hope you will be very polite to him. If it hadn't been for him, Cecily would have stayed in London, where we found her. He wormed her secret out of her and brought her to you as a peace-offering."
There was a deep emotion in Arthur's voice as he said:
"Then there shall always be peace between us."
The hand had been withdrawn from the light of day; but the languid, humorous voice continued to make sallies from the brown tent.
"We didn't want to be in the way; so, remembering this bit of property, we just chucked our Somali outfit into a ship, and here we are! I was dreadfully shocked and grieved to hear that you were all quite broke and had started an inn. In New York it is reported to be a great success, is it?"
"Why, I hope so," said Arthur; "I don't really know. Mary's head man. Maud keeps the books; the triplets keep getting into mischief, and Eve, so far as I know, keeps out. As for me, I had an occupation, but it's gone now."
"What was your job, Arthur?"
"My job was to have my arm in imagination where it now is in reality."
"Cecily!" exclaimed the voice. "Is that boy hugging you publicly? Am I absolutely without influence upon manners even among my own tents?"
"Absolutely, Princess!" laughed Cecily.
"Then the quicker I come out of my tent the better! You'll stop to breakfast, Arthur?"
"With pleasure, but shan't I get word to the girls? Of course, they would feel it their duty to call upon you at once."
"I should hope so—as an older woman I should expect that much of them. But, princess or no princess, I refuse to stand on ceremony. In my most exalted and aristocratic moments I can never forget that I am their mother. So after breakfastIshall call onthem."
At this moment, very tall and thin, in gray Scotch tweeds, carrying a very high, foreheady head, there emerged from the forest PrinceOducalchi, leading by the hand his eight-year-old son, Andrea, and singing in a touching, clear baritone something in Italian to the effect that a certain "Mariana's roses were red and white, in the market-place by the clock-tower!"
Andrea wore a bright-red sweater, carried a fine twenty-bore gun made by a famous London smith, and looked every inch a prince. He had all the Darling beauty in his face and all the Oducalchi pride of place and fame.
"Mr. Darling, I believe?" asked the prince, his left eyebrow slightly acockbill. "I have not had the pleasure of seeing you for some years, but I perceive that you are by way of accepting my peace-offering."
"I was never just to you," said Arthur, a little pale and looking very proud and handsome, "and you have been very good to my mamma and you have been very good to me. Will you forgive me?"
"I cannot do that. There has been nothing to forgive. But I will shake hands with you with all the pleasure in the world—my dear Cecily, does he come up to the memories of him? Poor children, you have had a sad time of it in this merry world! I may call you 'Arthur'? Arthur, this is your half-brother, Andrea. I hope thatyou will take a little time to show him the beautiful ways of your North Woods."
Arthur shook hands solemnly with the small boy, and their stanchly met eyes told of an immediate mutual confidence and liking.
"I've always wanted a brother in the worst way," said Arthur.
"So have I," piped Andrea.
And then Princess Oducalchi came out of her tent, and proved that, although her daughters resembled her in features, simplicity, and grace and dignity of carriage, they would never really vie with her in beauty until they had loved much, suffered much, borne children into the world, and remembered all that was good in things and forgotten all that was evil.
"Mamma," said Arthur, "is worth travelling ten thousand miles to see any day, isn't she?"
"On foot," said Prince Oducalchi, "through forests and morasses infested with robbers and wild beasts."
The princess blushed and became very shy and a little confused for a few moments. Then, with a happy laugh, she thrust one hand through her husband's arm, the other through Arthur's, and urged them in the direction of the tent, where breakfast was to be served.
Andrea followed, with Cecily holding him tightly by the hand.
"If we had not been buried in Somaliland at the time," said Arthur's mother, "we would never have let this 'Inn' happen. I'm sure you were against it, Arthur?"
"Of course," said he simply. "But with sister Mary's mind made up, and the rest backing her, what could a poor broken-hearted young man do? And it has worked out better than I ever hoped. I don't mean in financial ways. I, mean, the sides of it that I thought would be humiliating and objectionable haven't been. Indeed, it's all been rather a lark, and Mary insists upon telling me that we are a lot better off than we were. We charge people the most outrageous prices! It's enough to make a dead man blush in the dark. And the only complaint we ever had about it was that the prices weren't high enough. So Mary raised them."
"But," objected Prince Oducalchi, "you, and especially your sisters, cannot go on being innkeepers forever. You, I understand, for instance"—and his fine eyes twinkled with mirth and kindness—"are thinking of getting married."
"I am," said Arthur, with so much conviction that even his Cecily laughed at him.
"When I divorced your poor father," said the princess, "he happened to be enjoying one of his terrifically rich moments. So, in lieu of alimony, he turned over a really huge sum of money to me. When I married Oducalchi and told him about the money, he made me put it in trust for you children, to be turned over to you after your father's death. So you see there was never any real need to start the Inn—but of course we were in Africa and so forth and so on— If you've finished your coffee, I'm dying to see the girls. And I'm dying to tell them about the money, and to send all the horrid guests packing!"
"Some of the horrid guests," said Arthur, "won't pack. Of course, the girls think that I only study frogs and plants; but it's a libel. When two and two are thrust into my hands, I put them together, just as really sensible people do. You will find, mamma, a sad state of affairs at the camp."
Princess Oducalchi began to bristle with interest and alarm.
"Andrea," said his father, "have a canoe put overboard for me."
Andrea rose at once and left the breakfast tent.
"Now, Arthur," cried the princess, "tell me everything at once!"
"Gay," said Arthur, "is in love with a young Englishman, and knows that she is. He had to go home to be made an earl; but I think she is expecting him back in a few days, because she is beginning to take an interest in the things she really likes. Mary is in love with Sam Langham, and he with her. They, however, don't know this. Phyllis has forsaken her garden and become a dead-game sport. This she has done for the sake of a red-headed Bostonian named Herring. Lee and a young fellow named Renier are neglecting other people for each other. And our sedate Maud, formerly very much in the company of two fiery Southerners, is now very much in the company of one of them, Colonel Meredith, of South Carolina. The other Carolinian, Mr. Bob Jonstone, sprained his wrist the other day, and it seems that sister Eve was intended by an all-wise Providence to be a trained nurse. But in the case of those last mentioned there are certain mysteries to be solved."
At this moment Andrea appeared at the tent opening and announced in his piping child voice: "The canoe is overboard, papa."
Andrea stuck to his big brother like a leech, and insisted upon crossing to The Camp in the same canoe with him and Cecily. To Andrea the possibility of newly engaged persons wishing to be by themselves was negligible. Princess Oducalchi, an old hand on inland waters, took charge of the other canoe, and, like Arthur, in spite of a look of resigned horror on her husband's face, paddled standing up.
Arthur, too happy to make speed, was rapidly distanced by his mother, whose long, graceful figure and charming little, round head he regarded from time to time with great admiration.
"She might be one of my sisters!" he exclaimed to Cecily.
"If she only was," said Cecily, "and the others were only exactly like her, then I shouldn't be a bit frightened."
"Frightened?"
"Wouldn't you be frightened if I had six great angry brothers and you were just going to meet them for the first time?"
Arthur smiled steadily and shook his head.
"I'm too happy to be afraid of anything."
"I'm not. The happier I feel the more frightened I feel. And I can feel your sisters picking me all to pieces, and saying what a horrid little thing I am!"
"Little? Haven't I told you that you are exactly the right size?"
"No, you haven't."
"Then I tell you now. I leave it to Andrea. Isn't she exactly the right size, Andrea?"
"Then mamma is too tall."
"No, mamma is exactly the right size for a mamma. In fact, Andrea," exulted Arthur, "on this particular morning of this particular year of grace everything in the world is exactly the right size, except me. I'm not half big enough to contain my feelings. So here goes!"
And the sedate Arthur put back his head, which resembled that of the young Galahad, and opened his mouth, and let forth the most blood-curdling war-whoop that has been sounded during the Christian era.
Cecily clapped her hands to her ears, and Andrea gazed upon his big brother with redoubled admiration.
"Is that like Indians do?" he asked.
"Not at all," said Arthur; "that's what studious and domesticated young men do when they've overslept, and wake up to find the sky blue and the forest green." And once more he whooped terrifically. And Wow, the dog, heard him, and thought he had gone mad; and Uncas, the chipmunk, ran to the top of a tall tree at full speed, down it even faster, and into a deep and safe hole among the roots.
Gay alone was at the float to receive the Oducalchis; but now word of their coming had gone about The Camp, and the remaining Darlings could be seen hurrying up from various directions.
From embracing her mother, Gay turned with characteristic swiftness and sweetness to Cecily, who had just stepped from Arthur's canoe to the float, flung her arms around her, and kissed her.
"I'm not quite sure of your name," she said; "but I love you very much, and you're prettier than all outdoors."
Then Maud came, followed by Eve and Mary, with Lee next and Phyllis last, and they all talked at once, and made much of their mother and Cecily and little Andrea. And they all teased Arthur at once, and showered Oducalchi with polite and hospitable speeches. And he wasgreatly moved, because he knew very well that these beautiful maidens had loved their own brilliant scapegrace father to distraction, and that it was hard for them to look with kindness upon his successor.
Never, I think, did a mere float, an affair of planks supported by the displacing power of empty casks, have gathered upon it at one time so much beauty, so many delighted and delightful faces.
And now came guides, servants, and camp helpers, to whom Princess Oducalchi had been a kind and understanding mistress in the old days, and then, shyly and hanging back, hoping they were wanted and not sure, Sam Langham, Renier, Herring, the Carolinians, and others, until the float began to sink and there was a laughter panic and a general rush up the gangway to the shore. Here Wow, the dog, did a great deal of swift wagging and loud barking, and Uncas, the chipmunk, from the top of a tree said: "I'm not really angry, but I'm scolding because I'm afraid to come down, and nobody loves me or makes much of me—ever!"
To Arthur, standing a little aside, beaming with pride and happiness, and recording in his heart every pleasant thing which his sisters saidto Cecily and every pleasant look they gave her, came Gay presently, and slipped an arm through his.
"I'm so glad," she said.
But there was something in her voice that was not glad, and with one swift glance he read her wistful heart. He pressed her arm, and said:
"I know one poor little kid that's left out in the cold for the moment; one little lion that feels as if it wasn't going to get any martyr; one little sister that a big brother loves and understands a little bit better than any of the others— So there! At the moment everychacunehas herchacun, except one. Moments are fleeting, my dear, and other moments are ahead. I, too, have lived bad, empty, unhappy moments."
"But you always knew that she cared."
"And don't you know about him?"
"I only know that I've seen so many people appear to be idiotically happy at the same time, and it makes me want to cry."
"And for that very reason," said Arthur, "the moments that are ahead will be the happier."
"I wonder," said Gay, and, "I know," said Arthur.
The fact of Arthur's sudden blossoming into a full-fledged and emphatic figure of romance had an unsettling effect upon many of the peacefully disposed minds in The Camp. It is always so when friends, especially in youth, come to partings of ways. Clement, who takes the Low road, cannot but be disturbed at the thought of those possible adventures which lie in wait for Covington, who has fared forth by the High. There was the feeling among many of the young people in the camp that, if they didn't hurry, they might be left behind. Nobody expressed this feeling or acknowledged it or recognized in it anything more than a feeling of unrest; but it existed, nevertheless, and had its effect upon actions and affections.
Renier had been leading a life of almost perfect happiness. For the things that made him happy were the same sort of things that make boys happy. No school; no parental obstructions or admonitions; green-and-blue days filled fromend to end with fishing, sailing, making fires, shooting at marks, and perfecting himself in physical attainments. Add to these things the digestion and the faculties of a healthy boy interested neither in drink, tobacco, nor in any book which failed to contain exciting and chivalrous adventures, and, above all, a companion whose tastes and sympathies were such that she might just as well have been a boy as not.
They were chums rather than sweethearts. It needed a sense of old times coming to an end and new times beginning to make them realize the full depth and significance of their attachment for each other.
There were four of us once "in a kingdom by the sea," and I shall not forget the awful sense of partings and finality, and calamity, for that matter, furnished by a sudden sight of the first flaming maple of autumn.
"I think your mother's a perfect brick," said Renier. "She makes you feel as if she'd known you all your life, and was kind of grateful to you for living."
"I'm rather crazy about the prince," said Lee. "Of course, I oughtn't to be. But I can't help it, and after all he's been awfully good to mamma. Do you believe in divorce?"
"I never did until I saw your mother. She wouldn't ask for anything that she didn't really deserve."
"But it's funny, isn't it," said Lee, "that so many people get on famously together until they are actually married, and then they begin to fight like cats? I knew a girl who was engaged to a man for five years. You'd think they'd get to know each other pretty well in that time, wouldn't you? But they didn't. They hadn't been married six months before they hated each other."
"And that proves," said Renier, "that long engagements are a mistake."
"Smarty!" exclaimed Lee.
"I suppose your brother'll be getting married right away, won't he? Haven't they liked each other for ever so long?"
"M'm!" Lee nodded. "But Arthur never does anything right away. He does too much mooning and wool-gathering. If a united family can get him to the altar in less than a year they'll have accomplished wonders. There's one thing, though—when we do get him married good and proper, he'll stay married. He's like that at all games. It comes natural to him to keep his eyes in the boat. He's got the finest and sweetest nature of any man in this world,Ithink."
"Of course, you except present company?"
"Heavens, yes!" cried Lee, and they both laughed.
Then, suddenly, Lee looked him in the eyes quite solemnly.
"I wasn't fooling," she said, "not entirely. Idothink you're fine and sweet. I didn't always, but I do now."
There was levity in Renier's words but not in his voice.
"This," he said, "so far has been a perfectly good Tuesday."
"Whatever we do together," said Lee, "you always give me the best of it. It's been a good summer."
"Do you feel as if summer was over, too?"
She nodded.
"That's funny, isn't it? Because it's nowhere near over, is it? Maybe it's the excitement of the Oducalchis' arrival and your brother's engagement. It makes you sort of feel as if there wasn't time to settle back into the regular life and get things going again before the leaves fall."
He spoke. And from the fine striped maple under which they sat there fell, and fluttered slowly into Lee's lap, a great yellowing leaf ribbed with incipient scarlet.
"That only means," said Renier—but there was a kind of awe in his voice—"that this particular tree has indigestion."
And they sat for a time in silence and looked at the leaf. And lo! Arthur came upon them, smiling.
"I was looking for you two," he said. "I thought maybe you'd do me a great favor. I've got to play host, and——"
"Nobody would miss us!" exclaimed Lee.
"They wouldn't?" said Arthur. "I'll bet you anything you like that, during your absence, you will both be mentioned among the missing, by name, at least five times."
"What'll you bet?" asked Lee eagerly. "Nobody ever thinks ofus. Nobody ever mentionsus. Nobody even lovesus. What'll you bet?"
"Anything you like," said Arthur, "and if necessary I will take charge of the five personal mentionings and make them myself!"
Lee shook her head sadly, and said: "Once an accepted lover, always a sure thing, man. Oh, Arthur, how low you have fallen! You used to engineer bets with me for the sheer joy of seeing me win them. But now you are on the make, and it looks as if there was no justice under heaven— Where do you want us to go and whatdo you want us to do when we get there? Of course, we'll go; we always do. Everybody sends us on errands, and we always go. The longer the errands the oftener we go. But nobody seems to realize that we might enjoy spending one single solitary afternoon sitting under a striped maple and watching the green leaves turn yellow. Nobody even loves us! But when we are dead there will be the most frightful remorse and sorrow."
Arthur leaned heavily against the stem of the striped maple.
"Your sad case," he said, "certainly cries aloud for justice and redress——"
"'Kid us along, Bo,'" said Lee; "we love it!"
"I want two people," said Arthur, "for whom I have affection and in whom I have confidence, to go at once to Carrytown in theStreakand consult a lawyer upon a matter of paramount importance and delicacy—" He hesitated, and Lee said:
"I pray you, without further ado, continue your piquant narrative."
Then Arthur, in a tone of solemn, confidential eagerness:
"Look here, you two, go to Carrytown, will you, and find out how quickly two people can getmarried in the State of New York, and what they have to do about licenses and things? Will you? I'll be eternally obliged."
"Of course, we will," exclaimed Lee in sudden excitement. "Are you game?"
"You bet your sweet life I'm game!" cried the vulgar Renier. And a few minutes later the two inseparable school-boyesque chums, whom nobody mentioned, whom everybody sent on errands, and whom nobody even loved, were streaking across the lake in theStreak.
There was but the one lawyer in Carrytown and the one stenographer. Their shingles hang one above the other on the face of the one brick building.
At the door of this building Lee suddenly drew back.
"Look here!" she said. "Won't it look rather funny if we march in hand in hand and say: 'Beg pardon, sir, but how do you get married in the State of New York?'"
"Itwouldlook funny," said Renier, "and I shouldn't wonder if it made us feel funny. But the joke would really be on the lawyer. We could say 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' to him. Of course, if it would really embarrass you——"
"It wouldn't," said Lee, "really."
So they went up a narrow flight of stairs and knocked on the door of room Number Five. There was no answer. So they pushed open the door and entered a square room bound in sheepskin with red-and-black labels. There was nobody in the room, and Lee exclaimed:
"Nobody even loves us."
"He'll be in the back room," said Renier. "I know. Once I swiped a muskmelon from a lawyer's melon-patch, and had to see him about it.Hewas in the back room——"
"'Counting out his money'?"
"No; he was drinking whiskey with a judge and a livery-stable keeper, and they were all spitting on a red-hot stove."
"What did he do about the melon?"
"He told me to can the melon and have a drink. I had already canned the melon as well as I could (I wasn't educated along scientific lines) and my grandmother had promised me any watch I wanted if I didn't drink till I was twenty-one."
"Did you?"
"I did not."
"Did you get the watch?"
"I did not."
"Why not?"
"Grandma reneged. She said she didn't remember making any such promise."
They pushed open a swinging door and entered the back room.
Here, in a revolving chair, sat a stout young man with a red face. Upon his knees sat a stout young woman with a red face. And with something of the consistency with which a stamp adheres to an envelope so the one red face appeared glued to the other red face.
The red face of the stout young man had one free eye which detected the presence of intruders. And the stout young man said:
"Caught with the goods! Jump up, Minnie, and behave yourself!"
Minnie's upspring was almost a record-breaker.
Renier began to stammer:
"I b-b-beg your pardon," he said, "but I thought you might b-b-be able to tell me how to g-g-get married in New York State."
The stout young man rose from his revolving chair; he was embarrassed almost to the point of paralysis, but his mind and mouth continued to work.
"You've come to just the right man," he said, "at just the right time, for information of that sort. First, you hire a stenographer; then youget a mash on her. Then she sits in your lap—shewilldo it—and then you kiss her. And then you get a license, and then you curse laws and red tape for a while, and then you wed. Now, what you want is a license?"
"Exactly," said Renier. "It—it's for another fellow."
"Friend of yours?" queried the stout young man.
"Yes."
"And you want a license for him, not for yourself?"
Renier nodded.
"At this moment," said the stout young man, "there are assembled on the long wharf, chewin' tobacco and cursin', some twenty-five or thirty marines. Would you mind just stepping down and telling that to them?"
"I am quite serious," said Renier. "It is my friend who wants to get married."
"Andyoudon't?"
Renier stammered ineffectually.
"Then," said the stout young man, with a glance at Lee (of the highest admiration), "you're a gol-darn fool."
And forthwith he was so vulgar as to burst into a sudden snatch of song:
"Old man Rule was a gol-darn fool,For he couldn't see the water in the gol-darn pool!"
At the finish of this improvisation the dreadfully confused Minnie went, "Tee-hee!"
And, horror of horrors, that charming boylike companion, Lee Darling, behind whom were well-bred generations, also went suddenly, "Tee-hee."
"Licenses," said the stout young man, "are applied for in room Five. After you, sir; after you, miss."
And, with a waggish expression, he turned to Minnie.
"Be back in five minutes," he said; "try not to forget me, my flighty one."
When they were in the front room, he said:
"Before a license is issued, the licensor must be satisfied as to the preliminaries. Now, then, what can you tell me as to lap sitting and kissings?"
"You," cried Lee, in a sudden blaze of indignation, "are the freshest, most objectionable American I ever set eyes on."
The stout young man turned appealingly to Renier.
"You wouldn't say that," he said; "you'd say I was just typical, wouldn't you, now? AndI wish you would tell her that, though in these backwoods I have been obliged to eschew my Chesterfield, I've got a great big heart in me and mean well."
During the last words of this speech he became appealingly wistful.
"Why," said he to Lee, "just because Minnie and me is stout, don't you think we know heaven when we see it—the empyrean! Yesterday she threw me down, and I says to her: 'Since all my life seems meant for "fails"—since this was written and needs must be—my whole soul rises up to bless your name in pride and thankfulness. Who knows but the world may end to-night?' To-day she sits in my lap and we see which can hug the hardest. Ever try that?"
And suddenly the creature's voice melted and shook. He was a genuine orator, as we Americans understand it, having that within his powers of voice that defies logic and melts the heart.
"Wouldn't you," he said, "evenliketo sit in his lap? Wouldn't youloveto sit in his lap and be hugged?"
Lee looked to Renier for help, as he to her. And they took a step apiece directly toward each other, and another step. It was as if they had been hypnotized. Suddenly Renier caught Lee's handin his, and after a moment of looking into his eyes she turned to the stout man, and sang in miraculous imitation of him:
"Young Miss Mule is a gol-darn fool,But you made her see the water in the gol-darn pool."
"I'll just get a license blank," said the stout young man. "They're in the back room."
"Thank you," said Renier—"if you will, Mr.——"
"Heartbeat!" flashed the stout young man, and left them. And he wasn't lying or making fun that time. For that was his really truly name. And in northern New York people are beginning to think that he is by way of being up to it.
Suddenly Lee quoted from a joke that she and Renier had in common. She said, as if surprised:
"'Why, there's a table over there!'"
And Renier, his voice suddenly breaking and melting, answered:
"'Why, so there is—and here's a chair!'"
And Mr. Heartbeat, making a supreme effort to live up to his name, did not return with the license blank for nearly eight minutes. Duringthose minutes, Renier resolved that in every room in his home there should be at least one revolving chair. And they came out of Mr. Heartbeat's office no longer boyish companions but lovers, a little startled, engaged, and licensed to be married.
"Lee, dear," said Renier, "you don't feel that that fellow buncoed you into this, do you? Please say you don't."
"Of course, I wasn't buncoed," she said, and with infinite confidence. "Why, I've seen the thing coming for months! Haven't you?"
"I've seen a certain girl begin by being very dear and grow dearer and dearer—I wish we couldwalkback. I'm afraid of motor-boats, fresh water, and sudden storms on mountain lakes. And I hereby highly resolve that after this perilous trip I shall never again do anything dangerous, such as watching people going up in aeroplanes, such as sitting around with wet feet, such as eating green fruit, such as— Oh, my own darling little kiddie," he whispered with sudden trembling emotion, "but this life is precious."
"George and Charley are looking at us," said Lee, "with funny looks. I wonder if they areon? I wonder if everybody will beon—just by looking at us.DoI look foolish?"
"You do not, but I think you are foolish to take a feller like me, and that's why I'm going to dance down this gang-plank and snap my fingers and shock George and Charley out of their senses."
During this first part of theStreak's swift rush from Carrytown to The Camp a tranquil silence came over them. Lee, I think, was searching her heart with questions. But she had no doubt of her love for Renier; she doubted only her capacity to be to him exactly the wife he needed. And I know that Renier just sat, brazening the critical glances of George and Charley, and adored her with his eyes.
And what were his thoughts? Would you give a penny for them? He leaned closer to her, and in a whisper that thrilled them both to the bone, he quoted from Poe:
"And neither the angels in heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee."
And a little later he said:
"I never knew till to-day what poetry is for. I thought people who wrote it were just a little simple and that people who read and quoted it were perfect jackasses."
"And what is poetry for?" asked Lee, smiling.
"Poetry," he said, "is foryou."
As they neared the camp the sentiment in their hearts yielded a little to excitement.
"When we tell 'em," said Lee, "it's going to be just like a bomb going off. And everybody will be terribly envious."
"Nobody even loves us," laughed Renier, and he quoted:
"Among ten million, one was she,And surely all men hated me."
And like a flash Lee answered:
"Among ten million he was one,So all the ladies fought like fun."
"One thing is sure," sand Renier, "we've more than executed Brother Arthur's delicate and confidential commission. What we don't know about getting married in the State of New York simply doesn't exist."
Arthur, eager and impatient, was like a more famous person, watching and waiting.
"Well," he said, "thank you a thousand times. And what did you find out?"
"We've brought you a license blank," said Lee; "you simply fill it out with your names andages and things—like this—" And she placed a second paper in her brother's hands.
And conspicuous on the paper he saw Lee's name and Renier's. His hands shook a little, and his face became very grave and tender.
"Say you're surprised!" exclaimed Lee; "say you were never so surprised in all your born days!"
"But I'm not surprised," said Arthur. "Come here to me!" He opened his arms to her and she flung herself into them. Over her shoulder and hiding head Arthur spoke to Renier.
"No man," he said, "knows his own heart, and no woman knows hers. Nobody can promise with honesty to love forever. For sometimes love dies just as simply and inexplicably as it is born. But a man can promise to be good to his wife always, and tender with her and faithful to her, and if he is a gentleman he will make those promises good."
"I make those promises," said Renier simply; "will you give her to me?"
"It is for no man to give or to withhold," said Arthur. "The gods give. The duty of brothers is just to try to help things along and to love their sisters and to be friends with their brothers-in-law."