The Associate Hermits Part 12

Martin stood for a moment and looked at the bishop, he thought of Margery and a possible black eye, and then he walked as fast as he could to his tent to get some dry clothes. He was very wet, he was very hot, he was very angry, and what made him more angry than anything else was a respect for the bishop which was rising in him in spite of all his efforts to keep it down.

When Mr. Archibald and his party came back to camp late in the afternoon, Margery, who had already told her story to Mrs. Archibald, told it to each of the others. Mr. Archibald was greatly moved by the account of the bishop's bravery. He thoroughly appreciated the danger to which Margery had been exposed. There were doubtless persons who could be trusted so sit quietly in a little boat with only one oar, and to float upon a lake out of sight and sound of human beings until another boat could be secured and brought to the rescue, but Margery was not one of these persons. Her greatest danger had been that she was a child of impulse. He went immediately to Camp Roy to see the bishop and express his grat.i.tude, for no matter how great the foolish good-nature of the man had been, his brave rescue of the girl was all that could be thought of now.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WITH A GREAT HEAVE SENT HIM OUT INTO THE WATER"]

He found the bishop in bed, Mr. Clyde preparing the supper, and Mr.

Raybold in a very bad humor.

"It's the best place for me," said the bishop, gayly, from under a heavy army blanket. "My bed is something like the carpets in Queen Elizabeth's time, and this shelter-tent is not one which can be called commodious, but I shall stay here until morning, and then I am sure I shall be none the worse for my dip into the cold lake."

As Mr. Archibald had seen the black garments of the bishop hanging on a bush as he approached the tent, he was not surprised to find their owner in bed.

"No," said the bishop, when Mr. Archibald had finished what he had to say, "there is nothing to thank me for. It was a stupid thing to launch a young girl out upon what, by some very natural bit of carelessness, might have become to her the waters of eternity, and it was my very commonplace duty to get her out of the danger into which I had placed her; so this, my dear sir, is really all there is to say about the matter."

Mr. Archibald differed with him for about ten minutes, and then returned to his camp.

Phil Matlack was also affected by the account of the rescue, and he expressed his feelings to Martin.

"He pulled up the stake, did he?" said Phil. "Well, I'll make him pull up his stakes, and before he goes I've a mind to teach him not to meddle with other people's affairs."

"If I were you," said Martin, "I wouldn't try to teach him anything."

"You think he is too stupid to learn?" said Matlack, getting more and more angry at the bishop's impertinent and inexcusable conduct. "Well, I've taught stupid people before this."

"He's a bigger man than you are," said Martin.

Matlack withdrew the knife from the loaf of bread he was cutting, and looked at the young man.

"Bigger?" said he, scornfully. "What's that got to do with it? A load of hay is bigger than a crow-bar, but I guess the crow-bar would get through the hay without much trouble."

"You'd better talk about a load of rocks," said Martin. "I don't think you'd find it easy to get a crow-bar through them."

Matlack looked up inquiringly. "Has he been thrashing you?" he asked.

"No, he hasn't," said Martin, sharply.

"You didn't fight him, then?"

"No, I didn't," was the answer.

"Why didn't you? You were here to take charge of this camp and keep things in order. Why didn't you fight him?"

"I don't fight that sort of a man," said Martin, with an air which, if it were not disdainful, was intended to be.

Matlack gazed at him a moment in silence, and then went on cutting the bread. "I don't understand this thing," he said to himself. "I must look into it."

CHAPTER XIII

THE WORLD GOES WRONG WITH MR. RAYBOLD

The next morning Mr. Archibald started out, very early, on a fishing expedition by himself. He was an enthusiastic angler, and had not greatly enjoyed the experience of the day before. He did not object to shooting if there were any legitimate game to shoot, and he liked to tramp through the mountain wilds under the guidance of such a man as Matlack; but to keep company all day with Raybold, who, in the very heart of nature, talked only of the gossip of the town, and who punctuated his small talk by intermittent firing at everything which looked like a bird or suggested the movements of an animal, was not agreeable to him. Clyde was a better fellow, and Mr. Archibald liked him, but he was young and abstracted, and the interest which clings around an abstracted person who is young is often inconsiderable, so he determined for one day at least to leave Sir Cupid to his own devices, for he could not spend all his time defending Margery from amatory dawdle. For this one day he would leave the task to his wife.

That day Mr. Raybold was in a moody mood. Early in the morning he had walked to Sadler's, his object being to secure from the trunk which he had left there a suit of ordinary summer clothes. He had come to think that perhaps his bicycle attire, although very suitable for this sort of life, failed to make him as attractive in the eyes of youth and beauty as he might be if clothed in more becoming garments. It was the middle of the afternoon before he returned, and as he carried a large package, he went directly to his own camp, and in about half an hour afterwards he came over to Camp Rob dressed in a light suit, which improved his general appearance very much.

In his countenance, however, there was no improvement whatever, for he looked more out of humor than when he had set out, and when he saw that Mrs. Archibald was sitting alone in the shade, reading, and that at a considerable distance Harrison Clyde was seated by Margery, giving her a lesson in drawing upon birch bark, or else taking a lesson from her, his ill-humor increased.

"It is too bad," said he, taking a seat by Mrs. Archibald without being asked; "everything seems to go wrong out here in these woods. It is an unnatural way to live, anyhow, and I suppose it serves us right. When I went to Sadler's I found a letter from my sister Corona, who says she would like me to make arrangements for her to come here and camp with us for a time. Now that suits me very well indeed. My sister Corona is a very fine young woman, and I think it would be an excellent thing to have two young ladies here instead of one."

"Yes," said Mrs. Archibald, "that might be very pleasant. I should be glad for Margery to have a companion of her own s.e.x."

"I understand precisely," said Raybold, nodding his head sagaciously; "of her own s.e.x. Yes, I see your drift, and I agree with you absolutely. There is a little too much of that thing over there, and I don't wonder you are annoyed."

"I did not say I was annoyed," said Mrs. Archibald, rather surprised.

"No," he answered, "you did not say so, but I can read between the lines, even spoken lines. Now when I heard that my sister wanted to come out here," he continued, "at first I did not like it, for I thought she might be some sort of a restraint upon me; but when I considered the matter further, I became very much in favor of it, and I sent a telegram by the stage telling her to come immediately, and that everything would be ready for her. My sister has a sufficient income of her own, and she likes to have everything suited to her needs. I am different. I am a man of the world, and although I do not always care to conform to circ.u.mstances, I can generally make circ.u.mstances conform to me. As Shakespeare says, 'The world is my pottle, and I stir my spoon.' You must excuse my quoting, but I cannot help it. My life work is to be upon the stage, and where one's mind is, there will his words be also."

Mr. Raybold was now in a much more pleasant mood than when he came to sit in the shade with Mrs. Archibald. He was talking; he had found some one who listened and who had very little to say for herself.

"Consequently," he remarked, "I ordered from Mr. Sadler the very best tent that he had. It has two compartments in it, and it is really as comfortable as a house, and as my sister wrote that she wished a female attendant, not caring to have her meals cooked by boys--a very flippant expression, by-the-way--I have engaged for her a she-guide."

"A what?" asked Mrs. Archibald.

"A person," said he, "who is a guide of the female gender. She was the wife of a hunter who was accidentally shot, Sadler told me, by a young man who was with him on a gunning expedition. I told Sadler that it was reprehensible to allow such fellows to have guns, but he said that they are not as dangerous now as they used to be. This is because the guides have learned to beware of them, I suppose. This woman has lived in the woods and knows all about camp life, and Sadler says there could not be a better person found to attend a young lady in camp. So I engaged her, and I must say she charged just as much as if she were a man."

"Why shouldn't she," said Mrs. Archibald, "if she is just as good?"

To this remark Raybold paid no attention. "I will tell you," he said, "confidentially, of course, and I think you have as much reason to be interested in it as I have, why I came to view with so much favor my sister's coming here. She is a very attractive young woman, and I think she cannot fail to interest Clyde, and that, of course, will be of advantage to your niece."

"She is not my niece, you know," said Mrs. Archibald.

"Well," said he, "it is all the same. 'Let it be a bird wing or a flower, so it pleases'--a quotation which is also Avonian--and if Clyde likes Corona he will let Miss Dearborn alone. That's the sort of man he is."

"And in that case," said Mrs. Archibald, "I suppose you would not be unwilling to provide Margery with company."

"Madam," said the young man, leaning forward and fixing his eyes upon the ground, and then turning them upon her without moving his face towards her, "with me all that is a different matter. I may have occasion later to speak to you and your husband upon the subject of Miss Dearborn."

"In which case," said Mrs. Archibald, quickly, "I am sure that my husband will be very glad to speak to you. But why, may I ask, were you so disturbed when you came here, just now? You said the world was going wrong."

"I declare," said he, knitting his brows and clapping one hand on his knee, "I actually forgot! The world wrong? I should say it was wrong! My sister can't come, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Can't come?" asked Mrs. Archibald.

"Of course not," said he, all his ill-humor having returned. "That fellow, the bishop, is in our camp and in Clyde's bed. Clyde foolishly gave him his bed because he said the cook-tent was too cramped for a man to stay in it all day."

"Why need he stay?" asked Mrs. Archibald. "Has he taken cold? Is he sick?"