The Associate Hermits
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As they walked towards the camp, Margery in front, and Martin behind her carrying the drawing-materials and the easel, Margery suddenly turned.
“It was very good of you to offer to teach me to fish with flies,” she said, “and perhaps, if Uncle Archibald doesn’t want to be bothered, I may get you to show me how to do it.”
The young man’s face brightened, and he was about to express his pleasure with considerable warmth; but he checked himself, and merely remarked that whenever she was ready he would provide a rod and flies and show her how to use them.
Mrs. Archibald had gone into the cabin, and Margery went up to Matlack, who was on his way to the little tent in which the camp cooking was done.
“Did Mrs. Archibald tell you,” said she, “that we have invited Mr. Clyde and Mr. Raybold to supper to-night?”
The guide stopped and smiled. “She told me,” said he, “but I don’t know that it was altogether necessary.”
“I suppose you mean,” said Margery, “that they are here so much; but I don’t wonder; they must do awfully poor cooking for themselves. I don’t suppose they will bring anything back that is good to eat.”
“Not at this time of year,” said he, “but I shall be satisfied if they bring themselves home.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Margery, quickly.
“Well,” said Matlack, “I don’t doubt the bicycle fellow will always come back all right, but I’m afeard about the other one. That bicycle chap don’t know no more about a gun than he does about makin’ bread, and I wouldn’t go out huntin’ with him for a hundred dollars. He’s just as likely to take a crack at his pardner’s head as at anything else that’s movin’ in the woods.”
“That is dreadful!” exclaimed Margery.
“Yes, it is,” returned the guide; “and if I had charge of their camp he wouldn’t go out with a gun again. But it will be all right in a day or two. Peter will settle that.”
“Mr. Sadler, do you mean?” asked Margery. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“He’s got everything to do with it,” said Matlack. “He’s got everything to do with everything in this part of the country. He’s got his laws, and he sees to it that people stand by them. One of his rules is that people who don’t know how to use guns sha’n’t shoot in his camps.”
“But how can he know about the people out here in the woods?” asked Margery.
“I tell you, miss,” said Matlack, speaking slowly and decisively, “Peter Sadler’s ways of knowing things is like gas – the kind you burn, I mean. I was a-visitin’ once in a city house, and slept in a room on the top floor, and there was a leak in the pipe in the cellar, and that gas just went over the whole house, into every room and closet, and even under the beds, and I’ve often thought that that was just like Peter’s way of doin’ things and knowin’ things. You take my word for it, that bicycle-man won’t go out huntin’ many more days, even if he don’t shoot his pardner fust.”
“He won’t go to-morrow,” thought Margery; and then she said to Matlack: “I think we ought to know Mr. Sadler’s rules. Has he any more of them?”
“Oh, they ain’t very many,” said Matlack. “But there’s one I think of now, and that is that no woman shall go out in a boat by herself on this lake.”
“That is simply horrid!” exclaimed Margery. “Women can row as well as men.”
“I don’t say they can’t,” said Matlack. “I’m only tellin’ you what Peter’s rules are, and that’s one of them.”
Margery made no reply, but walked away, her head thrown back a little more than was usual with her.
“I’ve got to keep my eye on her,” said Matlack to himself, as he went to the cabin; “she’s never been broke to no harness.”
Mr. Raybold did not shoot Mr. Clyde, nor did he shoot anything else. Mr. Clyde did shoot a bird, but it fell into the water at a place where the shore was very marshy, and it was impossible for him to get it. He thought it was a heron, or a bittern, or perhaps a fish-hawk, but whatever it was, both ladies said that it was a great pity to kill it, as it was not good to eat, and must have been very happy in its life in the beautiful forest.
“It is very cruel to shoot them when they are not strictly game,” said Mr. Clyde, “and I don’t believe I will do it. If I had the things to stuff them with, that would be different, but I haven’t. I believe fishing is just as much fun, and more sensible.”
“I do not!” exclaimed Mr. Raybold. “I hold that hunting is a manly art, and that a forester’s life is as bold and free to him as it is to the birds in the air. I believe I have the blood of a hunter in me. My voice is for the woods.”
“I expect you will change your voice,” thought Margery, “when Mr. Sadler takes your gun away from you.” But she did not say so.
Mr. Archibald stood with his hands in his pockets reflecting. He had hoped that these two young men were inveterate hunters, and that they would spend their days in long tramps. He did not at all approve of their fishing. Fishing could be done anywhere – here, for instance, right at this very door.
Supper was over, and the five inhabitants of Camps Rob and Roy had seated themselves around the fire which Martin had carefully built, keeping in view a cheery blaze without too much heat. Pipes had been filled and preparations made for the usual evening smoke and talk, when a man was seen emerging from the woods at the point where the road opened into the clearing about the camp. It was still light, for these hungry campers supped early, and the man could be distinctly seen as he approached, and it was plain that he was not a messenger from Sadler’s.
He was rather a large man, dressed in black, and wearing a felt hat with a wide, straight brim. Hanging by a strap from his shoulder was a small leather bag, and in his hand he carried a closed umbrella. Advancing towards the fire, he took off his hat, bowed, and smiled. He wore no beard, his face was round and plump, and his smile was pleasant.
“Good-evening, ladies and gentlemen,” said he, and his voice was as pleasant as his smile.
“Good-evening,” said Mr. Archibald, and then for a moment there was a pause.
“I presume,” said the new-comer, looking about him, “that this is a camp.”
“It is a camp,” said Mr. Archibald.
“The fact is so obvious,” said the man in black, “that it was really unnecessary for me to allude to it. May I ask to be allowed to sit down for a few moments? I am fatigued.”
At this juncture Phil Matlack arrived on the scene. “Well, sir,” said he, “have you any business with anybody here? Who do you wish to see?”
“I have no business,” said the other, “and – ”
“And you are a stranger to everybody here?” interrupted Matlack.
“Yes, but I hope – ”
“Now then,” said the guide, quickly, “I’ve got to ask you to move on. This is one of Peter Sadler’s camps, and he has strict rules against strangers stoppin’ in any of them. If you’ve lost your way, I’ll tell you that this road, if you don’t turn to the right or the left, will take you straight to Sadler’s, and there’s time enough for you to get there before dark.”
“Mr. Matlack,” exclaimed Mrs. Archibald, who had risen to her feet, “I want to speak to you! It’s a shame,” she said, when the guide had approached her, “to send that man away without even giving him a chance to rest himself. He may be a very respectable person on a walking tour.”
“I guess he is on a walkin’ tour,” said Matlack, “and I guess he’s a regular tramp, and there’s no orders we’ve got that’s stricter than them against tramps.”
“Well, I don’t care who he is,” said Mrs. Archibald, “or what your rules are, but when a perfectly good-mannered man comes to us and asks simply to be allowed to rest, I don’t want him to be driven away as if he were a stray pig on a lawn. Mr. Archibald, shouldn’t he be allowed to rest a while?”
Her husband rose and approached the stranger. “Where are you going, sir?” said he.
The man looked at Matlack, at Martin, who stood behind him, and then at the rest of the company, and after this comprehensive glance he smiled.
“From present appearances,” he said, “I think I am going to go.”
Mr. Archibald laughed. “When do you expect to get there?” he asked.
“It seems to me,” said the other, reflectively, “that I am always going there, and I suppose I shall have to keep on doing it.”
“Look here,” said Mr. Archibald, turning to Matlack, “give him some supper, and let him rest. There will be time enough for him to get to Sadler’s after that. If Sadler has anything to say against it, refer him to me.”
“All right, sir,” said Matlack, “if you say so. I’m no harder on my fellow-bein’s than other people, but rules is rules, and it isn’t for me to break them.”
“My dear sir,” said the stranger to Mr. Archibald, “your words are more grateful to me than the promise of food. I see that you consider me a tramp, but it is a mistake. I am not a tramp. If you will allow me, after I have eaten a little supper – a meal which I must admit I greatly need – I will explain to you how I happen to be here.” And with a bow he walked towards the table where Matlack and Martin had been eating their supper.
“Do you know what I think he is?” said Mr. Clyde, when Mr. Archibald had resumed his seat and his pipe. “I believe he is a wandering actor. Actors always have smoothly shaven faces, and he looks like one.”
“Actor!” exclaimed Arthur Raybold. “That’s nonsense. He’s not in the least like an actor. Anybody could see by his tread and his air that he’s never been on the stage. He’s more like a travelling salesman. The next thing he’ll do will be to pull out of that bag some samples of spool thread or patent thimbles.”
“You are both wrong,” said Margery – “entirely wrong. I have been looking at him, and I believe he is a Methodist minister with a dead horse. They ride circuits, and of course when their horses die they walk. Just wait a little, and see if I am not right.”
They waited a little, and then they waited a little longer, and they had begun to be tired of waiting before the stranger finished his meal and approached the fire. His face was brighter, his smile was more pleasant, and his step had a certain jauntiness in it.
“I thank you all,” he said, “for the very good meal I have just enjoyed. I am now going to go, but before I start I would like very much – indeed, I crave it as a favor – to place myself before you in my proper light. May I have permission to do so, madam and sir?” he said, addressing Mrs. and Mr. Archibald, but with a respectful glance at the others, as if he would not ignore any one of them.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Archibald. “Sit down and tell us about yourself.”
The stranger seated himself with alacrity a little back from the circle, and nearer to the young men than to the Archibald party.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BISHOP’S TALE
The stranger placed his broad-brimmed hat on the ground beside him, exposing a large round head somewhat bald in front, but not from age, and the rest of it covered with close-cut brown hair. His black clothes fitted him very closely, their extreme tightness suggesting that they had shrunken in the course of wearing, or that he had grown much plumper since he had come into possession of them; and their general worn and dull appearance gave considerable distance to the period of their first possession. But there was nothing worn or dull about the countenance of the man, upon which was an expression of mellow geniality which would have been suitably consequent upon a good dinner with plenty of wine. But his only beverage had been coffee, and in his clear bright eye there was no trace of any exhilaration, except that caused by the action of a hearty meal upon a good digestion and an optimistic disposition.
“I am very glad,” he said, looking about him at the company, and then glancing with a friendly air towards the two guides, who stood a little back of Mr. Archibald, “to have this opportunity to explain my appearance here. In the first place, I must tell you that I am a bishop whose diocese has been inundated, and who consequently has been obliged to leave it.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Archibald; and Margery looked at Mr. Clyde, with the remark:
“There! You see I was very near to it.”
“I presume this statement will require some explanation,” continued the man in black, “and I will make it presently. I am going to be exceedingly frank and open in all that I say to you, and as frankness and openness are so extremely rare in this world, it may be that I shall obtain favor in your eyes from the fact of my possessing those unusual qualities. Originally I was a teacher, and for a year or two I had a very good country school; but my employment at last became so repugnant to me that I could no longer endure it, and this repugnance was due entirely to my intense dislike for children.”
“That is not at all to your credit,” observed Mrs. Archibald; “and I do not see how you became a bishop, or why you should have been made one.”
“Was your diocese entirely meadow-land?” inquired Mr. Archibald.
“I am coming to all that,” said the stranger, with a smile of polite consideration towards Mrs. Archibald. “I know very well that it is not at all to my credit to dislike children, but I said I would be honest, and I am. I do dislike them – not their bodies, but their minds. Children, considered physically, are often pleasant to the view, and even interesting as companions, providing their innate juvenility is undisturbed; but when their personalities are rudely thrown open by a teacher, and the innate juvenility prematurely exposed to the air, it is something so clammy, so chilly to the mental marrow, that I shrink from it as I would shrink from the touch of any cold, clammy thing.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Mrs. Archibald.
“I am not sure,” observed Margery, “that there is not some truth in that. I had a Sunday-school class for a little while, and although I can’t say there was a clamminess, there was – well, I don’t know what there was, but I gave it up.”
“I am glad,” said the man in black, “that my candor is not sinking me in the estimation of every one present; but even if it did, I am obliged to tell the truth. I do not know what would have become of me if I had not had the good-fortune to catch the measles from a family with whom I was spending Sunday in another town. As soon as the disease plainly showed itself upon me my school was broken up, and it was never gathered together again, at least under me.
“I must make my story brief, and can only say that not long after this I found myself in another town, where it became necessary for me to do something to support myself. This was difficult, for I am an indefinite man, and definiteness seems necessary to success in any line. Happening one day to pass a house with open lower windows, I heard the sound of children’s voices speaking in unison, and knowing that this must be a school, I looked in, compelled entirely by that curiosity which often urges us to gaze upon human suffering. I found, however, that this was a kindergarten conducted by a young woman. Unobserved by scholars or teacher, I watched the proceedings with great interest, and soon became convinced that kindergartening was a much less repellent system of tuition than any I had known; but I also perceived that the methods of the young woman could be greatly improved. I thought a good deal upon this subject after leaving the open window. Soon afterwards, becoming acquainted with the young person in charge of the children, I offered to teach her a much better system of kindergartening than she was using. My terms were very low, and she became my scholar. I soon learned that there were other kindergartens in the town, and some of the teachers of these joined my class. Moreover, there were young women in the place who were not kindergartners, but who would like to become such, and these I also taught, sometimes visiting them at their houses, and sometimes giving my lessons in a room loaned by one of my patrons. My system became very popular, because it was founded upon common-sense.”
“What was your system?” asked Mrs. Archibald. “I am interested in kindergartens myself.”
“My object,” he answered, “was to make the operation of teaching interesting to the teacher. It struck me very forcibly that a continuance of a few years in the present inane performances called kindergartening would infallibly send to our lunatic asylums a number of women, more or less young, with more or less depleted intellects. The various games and exercises I devised were very interesting, and I am sure I had scholars who never intended to become kindergartners, and who studied with me solely for their own advantage. It was at this time that I adopted the clerical dress as being more suitable to my vocation than any other costume, and some one having called me the bishop, the name soon became popular, and I was generally known by it.”
“But what is your real name?” asked Mrs. Archibald.
“Madam,” said the man, “you must excuse me if I ask you to recall your question. I have a good name, and I belong to a very good family, but there are reasons why I do not at present wish to avow that name. Some of these reasons are connected with the report that I purposely visited the family with the measles in order to get rid of my school; others are connected with the inundation of my diocese, of which I shall speak; others refer to my present indefinite method of life. There is reason to suppose that the time is not far distant when my resumption of my family name will throw no discredit upon it, but that period has not yet arrived. Do you press your question, madam?”
“Oh no,” said Mrs. Archibald; “it really makes no difference; and out here in the woods a man may call himself a bishop or a cardinal or anything he likes.”
“Thank you very much,” said he, “and I will continue to speak in figures, and call myself a bishop.”
“Where I was brought up,” interpolated Phil Matlack, still standing behind Mr. Archibald, “I was taught that figures don’t lie.”
“My good sir,” said the speaker, with a smile, “in mathematics they don’t, in poetry and literature they often do. Well, as I was saying, my diocese extended itself, my revenues were satisfactory, and I had begun to believe that I had found my true work in life, when suddenly there was a misfortune. There arrived in our town three apostles of kindergartening – two of them were women, and one was a man. They had heard of my system, and had come to investigate it. They did so, with the result that in an astonishingly short time my diocese was inundated with a flood of Froebelism which absolutely swept me away. With this bag, this umbrella, and this costume, which has now become my wardrobe, I was cast out in all my indefiniteness upon a definite world.”
“And how did you get here?” asked Mrs. Archibald.
“I had heard of Sadler and his camps,” said he; “and in this beautiful month and in this beautiful weather I thought it would be well to investigate them. I accordingly went to Mr. Sadler’s, where I arrived yesterday afternoon. I found Mr. Sadler a very definite man, and, I am sorry to say, that as he immediately defined me as a tramp, he would listen to no other definition. ‘You have no money to pay for food and lodgings,’ said he, ‘and you come under my tramp laws. I don’t harbor tramps, but I don’t kick them out into the woods to starve. For labor on this place I pay one dollar and a half a day of ten hours. For meals to day-laborers I charge fifteen cents each. If you want your supper, you can go out to that wood-shed and split wood for one hour.’ I was very hungry; I went out into the wood-shed; I split wood for one hour, and at the end of that time I had a sufficient meal. When I had finished, Mr. Sadler sent for me. ‘Do you want to stay here all night?’ he said. ‘I do,’ I answered. ‘Go, then, and split wood for another hour.’ I did so, and it was almost dark when I had finished. In the morning I split wood for my breakfast, and when I had finished I went to Mr. Sadler and asked him how much he would charge for a luncheon wrapped in a piece of paper. ‘Seven and a half cents,’ he said. I split wood for half an hour, and left Sadler’s ostensibly to return to the station by the way I had come; but while I had been at work, I found from the conversation of some of the people that one of the camps was occupied, and I also discovered in what direction it lay. Consequently, after I had passed out of the sight of the definite Peter Sadler, I changed my course, and took a path through the woods which I was told would lead to this road, and I came here because I might just as well pass this way as any other, and because, having set out to investigate camp life, I wished to do so, and I hope I may be allowed to say that although I have seen but little of it, I like it very much.”
“Now, then,” said Phil Matlack, walking around the circle and approaching the stranger, “you said, when you first came here, that you were going to go, and the time has come when you’ve got to go.”
“Very well,” said the other, looking up with a smile; “if I’ve got there I’d better stop.”
Mr. Archibald and the young men laughed, but Matlack and Martin, who had now joined him, did not laugh.
“You’ve barely time enough,” said the former, “to get to Sadler’s before it is pitch-dark, and – ”
“Excuse me,” said the other, “but I am not going back to Sadler’s to-night. I would rather have no bed than split wood for an hour after dark in order to procure one. I would prefer a couch of dried leaves.”
“You come along into the road with this young man and me; I want to talk to you,” said Matlack.
“Now, Matlack,” said Mr. Archibald, “don’t be cruel.”
“I am not,” said the guide. “I am the tenderest-hearted person in the world; but even if you say so, sir, I can’t let a stranger stay all night in a camp that I’ve got charge of.”
“Look here, Matlack,” exclaimed Mr. Clyde, “you haven’t got charge of our camp!”
“No, I haven’t,” said the other.
“Well, then, this person can come over and stay with us. We have a little tent that we brought to put over the cooking-stove, and he can sleep in that.”
“Very well,” said Matlack; “if you take him out of this camp I haven’t anything to say – that is, to-night.”
“My dear sir,” said the stranger, rising, and approaching Mr. Clyde, “I accept your offer with pleasure, and thank you most heartily for it. If you had proffered me the hospitality of a palace, I could not be more grateful.”
“All right,” said Clyde; “and I suppose it is time for us to be off, so I will bid you all good-night. Come along, Arthur. Come along, bishop.”
The face of the last-named individual beamed with delight as he heard this appellation, and bidding everybody good-night, and thanking them for the kindness with which he had been treated, he followed the two young men.
The three walked some little distance towards Camp Roy, and then Clyde came running back to speak to Margery, who was now standing by herself watching the young moon descend among the trees. Then Mr. Raybold also stopped and came back to Margery, upon which the bishop stopped and waited for them. In about ten minutes he was joined by the two young men, and the three proceeded to Camp Roy.
“There is one thing, Harriet,” said Mr. Archibald, “which I wish you would speak to Margery about. I don’t want her to get up so early and go out for a morning walk. I find that those young men are also early risers.”
“I will speak to her,” said Mrs. Archibald; “where is she?”
“Over there, talking to young Martin,” said her husband. “It isn’t quite dark yet, but I think it is time we were all in bed.”
“Quite time,” said she. “Margery tells me that that young guide, who is a handsome fellow, is going to teach her how to fish with flies. I wish you would sometimes take her out in the boat with you, Mr. Archibald; I am sure that you could teach her how to fish.”
He smiled. “I suppose I could,” he said; “and I also suppose I could pull her out of the water the first time she hooked a big fish. It would be like resting a boat on a pivot to put her into it.”
“Then you don’t take her,” said Mrs. Archibald, decisively. “And you can’t take her with you up the stream, because, of course, she can’t wade. I don’t want her to get tired of camp-life, but – ”
“Don’t be afraid of the young men,” interrupted her husband, with a laugh; “so long as there are three of them there is no danger.”
“Of course I will not, if you don’t wish it, Aunt Harriet,” said Margery, when Mrs. Archibald had spoken to her about the early morning walks; “and I will stay in my room until you call me.”