The Associate Hermits Part 18

"All right," said Matlack, "you might as well make it a business matter.

It's going to be business on my side, I'd have you know."

"Good--very good," said the bishop, "and now let me get at that wood."

So saying, he put down his cane, took off his hat, his coat, his waistcoat, his collar, and his cravat and his cuffs; he rolled up his sleeves, he turned up the bottoms of his trousers, and then taking an axe, he set to work.

In a few minutes Martin arrived on the scene. "What's up now?" said he.

"He's cuttin' wood for his meals," replied Matlack.

"I thought you were going to bounce him as soon as he got up?"

"That's put off until Monday morning," said Matlack. "Then he marches.

I've settled that."

"Did he agree?" asked Martin.

"'Tain't necessary for him to agree; he'll find that out Monday morning."

Martin stood and looked at the bishop as he worked.

"I wish you would get him to cut wood every day," said he. "By George, how he makes that axe fly!"

When the bishop finished his work he drove his axe-head deep into a stump, washed his hands and his face, resumed the clothing he had laid aside, and then sat down to supper. There was nothing stingy about Matlack, and the wood-chopper made a meal which amply compensated him for the deficiencies of the Perkenpine repast.

When he had finished he hurried to the spot where the party was in the habit of a.s.sembling around the camp-fire. He found there some feebly burning logs, and Mr. Clyde, who sat alone, smoking his pipe.

"What is the matter?" asked the bishop. "Where are all our friends?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'WHERE ARE ALL OUR FRIENDS?'"]

"I suppose they are all in bed," said Clyde, "with the bedclothes pulled over their heads--that is, except one, and I suspect she is talking in her sleep. They were all here as usual, and Mr. Archibald thought he would break the spell by telling a fis.h.i.+ng story. He told me he was going to try to speak against time; but it wasn't of any use. She just slid into the middle of his remarks as a duck slides into the water, and then she began an oration. I really believe she did not know that any one else was talking."

"That may have been the case," said the bishop; "she has a wonderful power of self-concentration."

"Very true," said Clyde, "and this time she concentrated herself so much upon herself that the rest of us got away, one by one, and when all the others had gone she went. Then, when I found she really had gone, I came back. By-the-way, bishop," he continued, "there is something I would like to do, and I want you to help me."

"Name it," said the other.

"I am getting tired of the way the Raybolds are trespa.s.sing on the good-nature of the Archibalds, and, whatever they do, I don't intend to let them make me trespa.s.s any longer. I haven't anything to do with Miss Raybold, but the other tent belongs as much to me as it does to her brother, and I am going to take it back to our own camp. And what is more, I am going to have my meals there. I don't want that wooden-headed Mrs.

Perkenpine to cook for me."

"How would you like me to do it?" asked the bishop, quickly.

"That would be fine," said Clyde. "I will help, and we will set up house-keeping there again, and if Raybold doesn't choose to come and live in his own camp he can go wherever he pleases. I am not going to have him manage things for me. Don't you think that you and I can carry that tent over?"

"With ease!" exclaimed the bishop. "When do you want to move--Monday morning?"

"Yes," said Clyde, "after breakfast."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HERMITS a.s.sOCIATE

During the next day no one in camp had reason to complain of Corona Raybold. She did not seem inclined to talk to anybody, but spent the most of her time alone. She wrote a little and reflected a great deal, sometimes walking, sometimes seated in the shade, gazing far beyond the sky.

When the evening fire was lighted, her mood changed so that one might have supposed that another fire had been lighted somewhere in the interior of her mental organism. Her fine eyes glistened, her cheeks gently reddened, and her whole body became animated with an energy created by warm emotions.

"I have something I wish to say to you all," she exclaimed, as she reached the fire. "Where is Arthur? Will somebody please call him? And I would like to see both the guides. It is something very important that I have to say. Mrs. Perkenpine will be here in a moment; I asked her to come. If Mr.

Matlack is not quite ready, can he not postpone what he is doing? I am sure you will all be interested in what I have to say, and I do not want to begin until every one is here."

Mr. Archibald saw that she was very much in earnest, and so he sent for the guides, and Clyde went to call Raybold.

In a few minutes Clyde returned and told Corona that her brother had said he did not care to attend services that evening.

"Where is he?" asked Miss Raybold.

"He is sitting over there looking out upon the lake," replied Clyde.

"I will be back almost immediately," said she to Mr. Archibald, "and in the mean time please let everybody a.s.semble."

Arthur Raybold was in no mood to attend services of any sort. He had spent nearly the whole day trying to get a chance to speak to Margery, but never could he find her alone.

"If I can once put the matter plainly to her," he said to himself, "she will quickly perceive what it is that I offer her; and when she clearly sees that, I will undertake to make her accept it. She is only a woman, and can no more withstand me than a mound of sand built by a baby's hand could withstand the rolling wave."

At this moment Corona arrived and told him that she wanted him at the camp-fire. He was only a man, and could no more withstand her than a mound of sand built by a baby's hand could withstand the rolling wave.

When everybody in the camp had gathered around the fire, Corona, her eye-gla.s.ses illumined by the light of her soul, gazed around the circle and began to speak.

"My dear friends," she said, "I have been thinking a great deal to-day upon a very important subject, and I have come to the conclusion that we who form this little company have before us one of the grandest opportunities ever afforded a group of human beings. We are here, apart from our ordinary circ.u.mstances and avocations, free from all the trammels and demands of society, alone with nature and ourselves. In our ordinary lives, surrounded by our ordinary circ.u.mstances, we cannot be truly ourselves; each of us is but part of a whole, and very often an entirely unharmonious part. It is very seldom that we are able to do the things we wish to do in the manner and at times and places when it would best suit our natures. Try as we may to be true to ourselves, it is seldom possible; we are swept away in a current of conventionality. It may be one kind of conventionality for some of us and another kind for others, but we are borne on by it all the same. Sometimes a person like myself or Mr.

Archibald clings to some rock or point upon the bank, and for a little while is free from the coercion of circ.u.mstances, but this cannot be for long, and we are soon swept with the rest into the ocean of conglomerate commonplace."

"That's when we die!" remarked Mrs. Perkenpine, who sat reverently listening.

"No," said the speaker, "it happens while we are alive. But now," she continued, "we have a chance, as I said before, to shake ourselves free from our enthralment. For a little while each one of us may a.s.sert his or her individuality. We are a varied and representative party; we come from different walks of life; we are men, women, and--" looking at Margery, she was about to say children, but she changed her expression to "young people." "I think you will all understand what I mean. When we are at our homes we do things because other people want us to do them, and not because we want to do them. A family sits down to a meal, and some of them like what is on the table, some do not; some of them would have preferred to eat an hour before, some of them would prefer to eat an hour later; but they all take their meals at the same time and eat the same things because it is the custom to do so.

"I mention a meal simply as an instance, but the slavery of custom extends into every branch of our lives. We get up, we go to bed, we read, we work, we play, just as other people do these things, and not as we ourselves would do them if we planned our own lives. Now we have a chance, all of us, to be ourselves! Each of us may say, 'I am myself, one!' Think of that, my friends, each one! Each of us a unit, responsible only to his or her unity, if I may so express it."

"Do you mean that I am that?" inquired Mrs. Perkenpine.

"Oh yes," replied Corona.

"Is Phil Matlack one?"

"Yes."