The Associate Hermits

CHAPTER XXV

A MOONLIGHT INTERVIEW

Mrs. Archibald retired to her cabin, but she did not feel in the least like going to bed. Her husband had long been asleep in his cot, and she still sat by the side of the little window looking out upon the moon-lighted scene; but the beauty of the night, if she noticed it at all, gave her no pleasure. Her mind was harassed and troubled by many things, chief among which was her husband’s unfinished sentence in which he had said that he would try to avoid any unpleasantness, but at the same time had intimated that if the unpleasant thing were forced upon him he was ready to meet it.

Now, reason as she would, Mrs. Archibald could not banish from her mind the belief that Arthur Raybold would come to their camp some time during the next day. In fact, not having heard otherwise, she supposed he had come to the camp-fire that night. She was filled with anger and contempt for the young man who was determined to force himself on their party in this outrageous manner, and considered it shameful that their peaceful life in these woods had been so wickedly disturbed. No wonder she did not want to sleep; no wonder she sat at the window thinking and thinking.

Presently she saw some one walking over the open space towards the cabin, and she could not fail to recognize the figure with the long stride, the folded arms, and the bowed head. He passed the window and then he turned and repassed it, then he turned and walked by again, this time a little nearer than before.

“This is too much!” said Mrs. Archibald. “The next thing he will be tapping at her window. I will go out and speak my mind to him.”

Opening the door very softly, and without even stopping to throw a shawl over her head and shoulders, Mrs. Archibald stepped outside into the night. Raybold was now at a little distance from the cabin, in the direction of Camp Roy, and was just about to turn when she hurried up to him.

“Mr. Raybold,” she said, speaking low and rapidly, “if you possessed a spark of gentlemanly feeling you would be ashamed to come into this camp when you have been ordered out of it. My husband has told you he does not want you here, and now I tell you that I do not want you here. It pains me to be obliged to speak to any one in this manner, but it is plain that no other sort of speech will affect you. Now, sir, I know your object, and I will not have you wandering up and down here in front of our cabin. I wish you to go to your own camp, and that immediately.”

Raybold stood and listened to her without a word until she had finished, and then he said:

“Madam, there has been a good deal of talk about knowing ourselves and showing ourselves to others. Now I know myself very well indeed, and I will show myself to you by saying that when my heart is interested I obey no orders, I pay no attention to mandates of any sort. Until I can say what I have to say I will watch and I will wait, but I shall not draw back.”

For the first time in fifteen years Mrs. Archibald lost her temper. She turned pale with anger. “You contemptible scoundrel! Go! Leave this camp instantly!”

He stood with arms folded and smiled at her, saying nothing. She trembled, she was so angry. But what could she do? If she called Mr. Archibald, or if he should be awakened by any outcry, she feared there would be bloodshed, and if she went to call Matlack, Mr. Archibald would be sure to be awakened. But at this moment some one stepped up quickly behind Raybold, and with a hand upon his shoulder, partly turned him around.

“I think,” said the bishop, “that I heard this lady tell you to go. If so, go.”

“I did say it,” said Mrs. Archibald, hurriedly. “Please be as quiet as you can, but make him go.”

“Do you hear what Mrs. Archibald says?” asked the bishop, sternly. “Depart, or – ”

“Do you mean to threaten me?” asked Raybold.

The bishop stepped close to him. “Will you go of your own accord,” he asked, “or do you wish me to take you away?”

He spoke quietly, but with an earnestness that impressed itself upon Raybold, who made a quick step backward. He felt a natural repugnance, especially in the presence of a lady, to be taken away by this big man, who, in the moonlight, seemed to be bigger than ever.

“I will speak to you,” said he, “when there are no ladies present.” And with this he retired.

“I am so much obliged to you,” said Mrs. Archibald. “It was a wonderful piece of good fortune that you should have come at this minute.”

The bishop smiled. “I am delighted that I happened here,” he said. “I heard so much talking this evening that I thought I would tranquillize my mind by a quiet walk by myself before I went to bed, and so I happened to see you and Raybold. Of course I had no idea of intruding upon you, but when I saw you stretch out your arm and say ‘Go!’ I thought it was time for me to come.”

“I feel bound to say to you,” said Mrs. Archibald, “that that impertinent fellow is persisting in his attentions to Miss Dearborn, and that Mr. Archibald and I will not have it.”

“I imagined that the discussion was on that subject,” said the bishop, “for Mr. Clyde has intimated to me that Raybold has been making himself disagreeable to the young lady.”

“I do not know what we are going to do,” said Mrs. Archibald, reflectively; “there seems to be no way of making an impression upon him. He is like his sister – he will have his own way.”

“Yes,” said the bishop, with a sigh, “he is like his sister. But then, one might thrash him, but what can be done with her? I tell you, Mrs. Archibald,” he said, turning to her, earnestly, “it is getting to be unbearable. The whole evening, ever since you left the camp-fire, she has been talking to me on the subject of mental assimilation – that is, the treatment of our ideas and thoughts as if they were articles of food – intellectual soda biscuit, or plum pudding, for instance – in order to find out whether our minds can digest these things and produce from them the mental chyme and chyle necessary to our intellectual development. The discourse was fortunately broken off for to-night, but there is more of it for to-morrow. I really cannot stand it.”

“I wouldn’t stand it,” said Mrs. Archibald. “Can’t you simply go away and leave her when she begins in that way?”

The bishop shook his head. “No,” he said, “that is impossible. When those beautiful eyes are fixed upon me I cannot go away. They charm me and they hold me. Unless there is an interruption, I must stay and listen. The only safety for me is to fly from this camp. At last,” he said, smiling a little sadly, “I am going to go. I did not want to do this until your camp broke up, but I must.”

“And you are really going to-morrow?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I have positively decided upon that.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” she said. “Good-night.”

When Mrs. Archibald entered her cabin she found her husband sleeping soundly, and she again sat down by the window. There was no such thing as sleep for her; her mind was more tossed and troubled than it had been before she went out. The fact that the bishop was going away made the matter worse, for just as she had found out that he was willing to help her, and that he might be able to keep Raybold away from them without actual violence – for she saw that the young boaster was afraid of him – he had told her he must leave, and in her heart she did not blame him. With great fear and anxiety she looked forward to the morrow.

It was about two o’clock when Mrs. Archibald suddenly arose from her seat by the window and lighted a candle. Then she pulled down the shades of the windows, front and back, after which she went to her husband’s cot and put her hand upon his shoulder.

“Hector,” said she, “wake up.”

In a moment Mr. Archibald was staring at her. “What is the matter?” he exclaimed. “Are you sick?”

“No,” said she, “but I have something very important to say to you. I want you to get up and go away with me, and take Margery.”

Mr. Archibald sat up in bed. He was now in full possession of his senses. “What!” said he, “elope? And where to?”

“Yes,” said she, “that is exactly what I mean, and we will go to Sadler’s first, and then home.”

“Do you mean now?” said he.

“Yes – that is, as soon as it is light,” she replied.

“Are you positively sure you are awake, Harriet?” asked Mr. Archibald.

“Awake!” she said. “I have not been asleep to-night. Don’t you see I am dressed?” And she drew a chair to the bedside and sat down. “I know more about what is going on than you do, Hector,” she said, “and I tell you if we stay any longer in this camp, there is going to be great trouble. That young Raybold pays no attention to what you said about keeping away from us. He comes here, when he pleases, and he says he intends to come. I asked you to take a walk with me this evening because I saw him coming to the camp-fire and I knew that you would resent it. To-night I saw him walking up and down in front of our cabin, and I believe he intended to try to speak to Margery. I went out to him myself, and he was positively insulting. If the bishop had not happened to come up, I believe he would have stayed here and defied me. But he made him go.

“Now that you know this, Hector, it is very certain that there will be trouble between you and that young man, and I do not want that. And, besides that, there is his sister; she is as determined to preach as he is to speak to Margery. The bishop says he can’t stand her any longer, and he is going away to-morrow, and that will make it all the worse for us – especially for you, Hector. I cannot endure this state of things; it has made me so nervous I cannot get to sleep, and, besides, it is not right for us to keep Margery where she must be continually guarded from such a man. Now it may seem foolish to run away, but I have thought over the matter for hours and hours, and it is the only thing to do; and what is more, it is very easy to do. If we announce that we are going, we will all go, and the chief cause of quarrels and danger will go with us. I know you, Hector; you will not stand his impertinence.

“It will be daylight between three and four o’clock, and we three can start out quietly and have a pleasant walk to Sadler’s. It is only four miles, and we can take our time. We need not carry anything with us but what we choose to put in our pockets. We can pack our bags and leave them here, and Mr. Sadler will send for them. When we get there we can go to bed if we like, and have time enough for a good sleep before breakfast, and then we can take the morning stage and leave this place and everybody in it. Now please don’t be hasty and tell me all this is foolish. Remember, if you stay here you have a quarrel on your hands, and I shall have hours of misery until that quarrel is settled; and no matter how it is settled, things will be disagreeable afterwards.”

“Harriet,” said Mr. Archibald, suddenly twisting himself so that he sat on the side of the bed, “your idea is a most admirable one. It suits me exactly. Let us run away. It is impossible for us to do anything better than that. Have you told Margery?”

“No,” she answered, “but I will go to her at once.”

“Be quick and quiet, then,” said her husband, who had now entered fully into the spirit of the adventure; “nobody must hear us. I will dress, and then we will pack.”

“Margery,” said Mrs. Archibald, after three times shaking the sleeping girl, “you must get up. Your uncle and I are going away, and you must go with us.”

Margery turned her great eyes on Mrs. Archibald, but asked no questions.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Archibald, “we cannot stay in this camp any longer, on account of Mr. Raybold and various other things. Matters have come to a crisis, and we must go, and more than that, we must slip away so that the others may not go with us.”

“When?” asked Margery, now speaking for the first time.

“As soon as it is daylight.”

“So soon as that?” said the girl, a shadow on her brow which was very plain in the light of the candle which Mrs. Archibald had brought with her. “Surely not before breakfast?”

“Margery,” said Mrs. Archibald, a little sharply, “you do not seem to understand – you are not awake; we must start as soon as it is light. But we cannot discuss it now. We are going, and you must go with us. You must get up and pack your things in your bag, which we shall send for.”

Suddenly a light came into Margery’s eyes and she sat up. “All right,” said she, “I will be ready as soon as you are. It will be jolly to run away, especially so early in the morning,” and with that she jumped out of bed.

CHAPTER XXVI

AN ELOPEMENT

A little more than an hour after Mrs. Archibald had made known her project to her husband the three inhabitants of the cabin stole softly out into the delicate light of the early dawn.

Mr. Archibald had thought of leaving a note for Matlack, but his wife had dissuaded him. She was afraid that the wrong person might get hold of it.

“When we are safely at Sadler’s,” she said, “we can send for our bags, with a note to Matlack. It will not matter then who knows.” She had a firm belief in the power of the burly keeper of the inn to prevent trouble on his premises.

With careful but rapid steps the little party passed along the open portion of the camp, keeping as far as possible from the tent wherein reposed Corona and Mrs. Perkenpine, and soon reached the entrance of the wood road. Here it was not quite so light as in the open, but still they could make their way without much trouble, and after a few minutes’ walking they felt perfectly safe from observation, and slackening their pace, they sauntered along at their ease.

The experience was a novel one to all of them; even Mr. Archibald had never been in the woods so early in the morning. In fact, under these great trees it could scarcely be said to be morning. The young light which made its uncertain way through the foliage was barely strong enough to cast a shadow, and although these woodland wanderers knew that it was a roadway in which they were walking, that great trees stood on each side of them, with branches reaching out over their heads, and that there were bushes and vines and here and there a moss-covered rock or a fallen tree, they saw these things not clearly and distinctly, but as through a veil. But there was nothing uncertain about the air they breathed; full of the moist aroma of the woods, it was altogether different from the noonday odors of the forest.

Stronger and stronger grew the morning light, and more and more clearly perceptible became the greens, the browns, and the grays about them. Now the birds began to chatter and chirp, and squirrels ran along the branches of the trees, while a young rabbit bounced out from some bushes and went bounding along the road. This early morning life was something they had not seen in their camp, for it was all over before they began their day. There was a spring by the roadside, which they had noticed when they had come that way before, and when they reached it they sat down and ate some biscuit which Mrs. Archibald had brought with her, and drank cool water from Mr. Archibald’s folding pocket-cup.

The loveliness of the scene, the novelty of the experience, the feeling that they were getting away from unpleasant circumstances, and in a perfectly original and independent fashion, gave them all high spirits. Even Mrs. Archibald, whose sleepless night might have been supposed to interfere with this morning walk, declared herself as fresh as a lark, and stated that she knew now why a lark or any other thing that got up early in the morning should be fresh.

They had not left the spring far behind them when they heard a rustling in the woods to the right of the road, and the next moment there sprang out into the open, not fifty feet in front of them, a full-grown red deer. They were so startled by this apparition that they all stopped as if the beautiful creature had been a lion in their path. For an instant it turned its great brown eyes upon them, and then with two bounds it plunged into the underbrush on the other side of the road. Mrs. Archibald and Margery had never before seen a deer in the woods.

The young girl clapped her hands. “It all reminds me of my first night at the opera!” she cried.

Two or three times they rested, and they never walked rapidly, so it was after five o’clock when the little party emerged into the open country and approached the inn. Not a soul was visible about the premises, but as they knew that some one soon would be stirring, they seated themselves in three arm-chairs on the wide piazza to rest and wait.

Peter Sadler was an early riser, and when the front hall door was open he appeared thereat, rolling his wheeled chair out upon the piazza with a bump – though not with very much of a bump, for the house was built to suit him and his chair. But he did not take his usual morning roll upon the piazza, for, turning his head, he beheld a gentleman and two ladies fast asleep in three great wicker chairs.

“Upon my soul!” he exclaimed. “If they ain’t the Camp Robbers!” At this exclamation they all awoke.

Ten minutes after that the tale had been told, and if the right arm of Mr. Sadler’s chair had not been strong and heavy it would have been shivered into splinters.

“As usual,” cried the stalwart Peter, “the wrong people ran away. If I had seen that bicycle man and his party come running out of the woods, I should have been much better satisfied, and I should have thought you had more spirit in you, sir, than I gave you credit for.”

“Oh, you mistake my husband altogether!” cried Mrs. Archibald. “The trouble with him is that he has too much spirit, and that is the reason I brought him away.”

“And there is another thing,” exclaimed Margery. “You should not say Mr. Raybold and his party. He was the only one of them who behaved badly.”

“That is true,” said Mrs. Archibald. “His sister is somewhat obtrusive, but she is a lady, gentle and polite, and it would have been very painful to her and as painful to us had it been necessary forcibly to eject her brother from our camp. It was to avoid all this that we – ”

“Eloped,” interjected Mr. Archibald.

The good Peter laughed. “Perhaps you are right,” said he. “But I shall have a word with that bicycle fellow when he comes this way. You are an original party, if there ever was one. First you go on somebody else’s wedding-journey, and then you elope in the middle of the night, and now the best thing you can do is to go to bed. You can have a good sleep and a nine-o’clock breakfast, and I do not see why you should leave here for two or three days.”

“Oh, we must go this morning,” said Mrs. Archibald, quickly. “We must go. We really cannot wait until any of those people come here. It makes me nervous to think about it.”

“Very good, then,” said Peter. “The coach starts for the train at eleven.”

Mrs. Archibald was a systematic woman, and was in the habit of rising at half-past seven, and when that hour arrived she awoke as if she had been asleep all night. Going to the window to see what sort of a day it was, which was also her custom, she looked out upon the lawn in front of the house, and her jaw dropped and her eyes opened. There she beheld Margery and Mr. Clyde strolling along in close converse. For a moment she was utterly stupefied.

“What can this mean?” she thought. “How could they have missed us so soon? We are seldom out of our cabin before eight o’clock. I cannot comprehend it!” And then a thought came to her which made her face grow pale. “Is it possible,” she said to herself, “that any of the others have come? I must go immediately and find out.”

In ten minutes she had dressed and quietly left the room.

When Margery saw Mrs. Archibald descending the piazza, steps, she left Mr. Clyde and came running to meet her.

“I expect you are surprised to see me here,” she said, “but I intended to tell you and Uncle Archibald as soon as you came down. You see, I did not at all want to go away and not let Mr. Clyde know what had become of me, and so, after I had packed my bag, I wrote a little note to him and put it in a biscuit-box under a stone not far from my window, which we had arranged for a post-office, just the day before.”

“A post-office!” cried Mrs. Archibald.

“Yes,” said Margery. “Of course there wasn’t any need for one – at least we did not suppose there would be – but we thought it would be nice; for, you must know, we are engaged.”

“What!” cried Mrs. Archibald. “Engaged? Impossible! What are you talking about?”

“Yes,” said Margery, “we are really engaged, and it was absolutely necessary. Under ordinary circumstances this would not have happened so soon, but as things were it could not be delayed. Mr. Clyde thought the matter over very carefully, and he decided that the only way to keep me from being annoyed and frightened by Mr. Raybold was for him to have the right to defend me. If he told Mr. Raybold I was engaged to him, that of course would put an end to the young man’s attentions. We were engaged only yesterday, so we haven’t had any time to tell anybody, but we intended to do it to-day, beginning with you and Uncle Archibald. Harrison came over early to the post-office, hoping to find some sort of a note, and he was wonderfully astonished when he read what was in the one I put there. I told him not to say anything to anybody, and he didn’t, but he started off for Sadler’s immediately, and came almost on a run, he says, he was so afraid I might go away before he saw me.”