The Associate Hermits

“Margery,” exclaimed the elder lady, tears coming into her eyes as she spoke, “I am grieved and shocked beyond expression. What can I say to my husband? What can I say to your mother? From the bottom of my heart I wish we had not brought you with us; but how could I dream that all this trouble would come of it?”

“It is indeed a very great pity,” said Margery, “that Mr. Clyde and I could not have been engaged before we went into camp; then Mr. Raybold would have had no reason to bother me, and I should have had no trouble with Martin.”

“Martin!” cried Mrs. Archibald. “What of him?”

“Oh, he was in love with me too,” replied the young girl, “and we had talks about it, and I sent him away. He was really a young man far above his station, and was doing the things he did simply because he wanted to study nature; but of course I could not consider him at all.”

“And that was the reason he left us!” exclaimed Mrs. Archibald. “Upon my word, it is amazing!”

“Yes,” said Margery; “and don’t you see, Aunt Harriet, how many reasons there were why Mr. Clyde and I should settle things definitely and become engaged? Now there need be no further trouble with anybody.”

Distressed as she was, Mrs. Archibald could not refrain from smiling. “No further trouble!” she said. “I think you would better wait until Mr. Archibald and your mother have heard this story before you say that.”

Mr. Archibald was dressing for breakfast when his wife told him of Margery’s engagement, and the announcement caused him to twirl around so suddenly that he came very near breaking a looking-glass with his hair-brush. He made a dash for his coat. “I will see him,” he said, and his eyes sparkled in a way which indicated that they could discover a malefactor without the aid of spectacles.

“Stop!” said his wife, standing in his way. “Don’t go to them when you are angry. We have just got out of trouble, and don’t let us jump into it again. If they are really and truly engaged – and I am sure they are – we have no authority to break it off, and the less you say the better. What we must do is to take her immediately to her mother, and let her settle the matter as best she can. If she knows her daughter as well as I do, I am sure she will acquit us of all blame.”

Mr. Archibald was very indignant and said a great deal, but his wife was firm in her counsel to avoid any hard words or bad feeling in a matter over which they had now no control.

“Well,” said he, at last, “I will pass over the whole affair to Mrs. Dearborn, but I hope I may eat my breakfast without seeing them. Whatever happens, I need a good meal.”

When Mr. Archibald came out of the breakfast-room, his mind considerably composed by hot rolls and coffee, he met Margery in the hall.

“Dear Uncle Archibald,” she exclaimed, “I have been waiting and waiting for you. I hope you are not angry. Please be as kind to us as you can, and remember, it was just the same with us as it was with you and Aunt Harriet. You would not have run away from the camp in the middle of the night if you could have helped it, and we should not have been engaged so suddenly if we could have helped it. But we all had to do what we did on account of the conduct of others, and as it is settled now, I think we ought all to try to be as happy as we can, and forget our troubles. Here is Harrison, and he and I both pray from the bottom of our hearts that you will shake hands with him. I know you always liked him, for you have said so. And now we are both going to mother to tell her all about it.”

“Both?” said Mr. Archibald.

“Yes,” said Margery; “we must go together, otherwise mother would know nothing about him, and I should be talking to no purpose. But we are going to do everything frankly and openly and go straight to her, and put our happiness in her hands.”

Mr. Archibald looked at her steadfastly. “Such ingenuousness,” he said, presently, “is overpowering. Mr. Clyde, how do you do? Do you think it is going to be a fine day?”

The young man smiled. “I think it is going to be a fine lifetime,” said he.

The party was gathered together on the piazza, ready to take the coach. The baggage had arrived from the camp in a cart; but Phil Matlack had not come with it, as he remained to take down his tent and settle affairs generally. They were all sorry not to see him again, for he had proved himself a good man and a good guide; but when grown-up married people elope before daybreak something must be expected to go wrong. Hearty and substantial remembrances were left for him, and kind words of farewell for the bishop, and even for Miss Corona when she should appear.

Peter Sadler was loath to part with his guests. “You are more interesting now than ever you were,” he said, “and I want to hear all about that hermit business; you’ve just barely mentioned it.”

“My dear sir,” said Mr. Archibald, with a solemn visage, “sooner or later Miss Corona Raybold will present herself at this inn on her way home. If you want to know anything about her plan to assist human beings to assert their individualities, it will only be necessary to mention the fact to her.”

“Good-bye, then,” said Peter, shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Archibald. “I don’t know what out-of-the-way thing you two will do next, but, whatever it is, I hope it will bring you here.”

CHAPTER XXVII

MRS. PERKENPINE DELIGHTS THE BISHOP

It was the bishop who first appreciated the fact that a certain air of loneliness had descended upon the shore of the lake. He had prepared breakfast at his camp, but as Mr. Clyde did not make his appearance he went to Camp Rob to look for him. There he saw Matlack and his assistant busy in their kitchen tent, and Mrs. Perkenpine was also engaged in culinary matters. He had left Arthur Raybold asleep at Camp Roy, but of the ladies and gentleman who were usually visible at the breakfast-hour at Camp Rob he saw no signs, and he approached Mrs. Perkenpine to inquire for Clyde. At his question the sturdy woman turned and smiled. It was a queer smile, reminding the bishop of the opening and shutting of a farm gate.

“He’s a one-er,” said she. “Do you suppose he could ketch a rabbit, no matter how fast he ran?”

“Come, now,” said the bishop, “he wasn’t trying to do that?”

“He was either doin’ that, or else he was runnin’ away. I seed him early this mornin’ – I wasn’t up, but I was lookin’ round – and I thought from the way he was actin’ that he’d set a rabbit-trap and was goin’ to see if he’d caught anything, and pretty soon I seed him runnin’ like Sam Hill, as if his rabbit had got away from him. But perhaps it wasn’t that, and maybe somebody skeered him. Anyway, he’s clean gone.”

The bishop stood and reflected; the affair looked serious. Clyde was a practical, sensible fellow – and he was gone. Why did he go?

“Have you seen any of the Archibalds yet?” he asked.

“No,” said she; “I guess they’re not up yet, though it’s late for them. My young woman ain’t up nuther, but it ain’t late for her.”

The bishop walked slowly towards the cabin and regarded it earnestly. After a few minutes inspection he stepped up to the door and knocked. Then he knocked again and again, and hearing nothing from within he became alarmed, and ran to Matlack.

“Hello!” he cried. “Something has happened to your people, or they have gone away. Come to the cabin, quick!”

In less than a minute Matlack, the bishop, and Bill Hammond were at the cabin, and the unfastened door was opened wide. No one was in the house, that was plain enough, but on the floor were four bags packed for transportation.

Matlack looked about him, and then he laughed. “All right,” said he; “there ain’t no need of worryin’ ourselves. They haven’t left a thing of theirs about, everything’s packed up and ready to be sent for. When people do that, you may be sure nothing’s happened to them. They’ve gone off, and I bet it’s to get rid of that young woman’s preachin’. But I don’t blame them; I don’t wonder they couldn’t stand it.”

The bishop made no reply. Remembering his recent conversation with Mrs. Archibald, he believed that, if they had quietly gone away, there was a better reason for it than Miss Raybold’s fluency of expression. It was possible that something might have happened after he had retired from the scene the night before, for when he went to sleep Raybold was still walking up and down in the moonlight.

His mind was greatly disturbed. They were gone, and he was left. “What are you going to do?” he asked Matlack.

“Nothin’ just now,” said the guide. “If they don’t send for their things pretty soon, I’ll go over to Sadler’s and find out what’s the matter. But they’re all right. Look how careful them bags is strapped up!”

The bishop left the cabin and walked thoughtfully away in the direction of Camp Roy. In two minutes he had made up his mind: he would eat his breakfast – he could not travel upon an empty stomach – and then he would depart. That was imperative.

When he reached the camp he found that Raybold had risen and was pouring out for himself a bowl of coffee. Seeing the bishop approach, the young man’s face grew dark, as might have been expected from the events of the night before, and he hurriedly placed some articles of food upon a plate, and was about leaving the stove when the bishop reached him. Raybold turned with a frown, and what was meant to be a glare.

“I shall bide my time,” said he, and with his coffee and his plate he retired to a distance.

The bishop smiled but made no answer, and sat down and ate his meal in peace; then he prepared to depart. He had nothing but a little bag, and it did not take long to put in order the simple culinary department of the camp. When all was done he stood for some minutes thinking. There was a path through the woods which led to the road, so that he might go on to Sadler’s without the knowledge of any one at Camp Rob, but he felt that he ought to see Matlack and tell him that he was going. If anything went wrong at Camp Roy he did not wish to be held responsible for it. Mr. Archibald could afford to go away without saying anything about it, but he could not, and, besides, if he should happen to see Miss Raybold it would be far more gentlemanly to tell her that he was going and to bid her goodbye, than to slip off through the woods like a tramp. He would go, that he was determined upon; but he would go like a man.

When he reached Camp Rob the first person he saw was Miss Raybold, standing near her tent with a roll of paper in her hand. The moment she perceived him she walked rapidly towards him.

“Good-morning,” she said. “Did you know that the Archibalds had gone? I never was so amazed in all my life. I was eating my breakfast when a man and a cart drove up to their cabin, and Mrs. Perkenpine, running to see what this meant, soon came back and told me that the family of three had departed in the night, and had sent this cart for their baggage. I think this was a very uncivil proceeding, and I do not in the least understand it. Can you imagine any reason for this extremely uncourteous action?”

The bishop could imagine reasons, but he did not care to state them.

“It may be,” he said, with a smile, “that they discovered that their natures demanded hotel beds instead of camp cots, and that they immediately departed in obedience to the mandates of their individualities.”

“But in so doing,” said Miss Raybold, “they violated the principles of association. Our scheme included mutual confidence as well as self-investigation and assertion. I must admit that Mr. Archibald disappointed me. I think he misunderstood my project. By holding one’s self entirely aloof from humanity one encourages self-ignorance. But perhaps our party was somewhat too large – the elements too many and inharmonious – and I see no reason why we who remain should relinquish our purpose. I believe it will be easier for us to become truly ourselves than when our number was greater, and so I propose that we make no change whatever in our plans; that we live on, for the time agreed upon, exactly as if the Archibalds were here. And now, if you have a few minutes to spare, I would like to read you something I wrote this morning before I left my tent. I was awake during the night, and thought for a long time upon the subject of mental assimilation, the discussion of which we did not finish last evening, and this morning, while my thoughts were fresh, I put them upon paper, and now I would like to read them to you. Isn’t there some shady place where we might sit down? There are two camp-chairs; will you kindly place them under this tree?”

The bishop sighed, but he went for the chairs. It would be too hard for him to tell her he was going to leave the camp, and he would not try to do it. He would slip off as soon as he had a chance, and leave a note for her. She would not perhaps like that, but it was the best he could do.

The reading of the paper occupied at least half an hour, and when it was finished, and Corona had begun to make some remarks on a portion of it which she had not fully elaborated, Mrs. Perkenpine approached, and stood before her.

“Well, miss,” said she, “I’m off.”

Miss Raybold fixed her eye-glasses upon her. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m goin’ back to Sadler’s,” she replied. “Phil’s goin’, and I’m goin’. He’s jest told me that the cart’s comin’ back for the kitchen fixin’s and his things, and him and Bill Hammond is goin’ to Sadler’s with it; and if he goes, I goes.”

This speech had a very different effect upon its two hearers. Corona was as nearly angry as her self-contained nature would permit; but, although he did not allow his feelings to betray him, the bishop was delighted. Now they must all go, and that suited him exactly.

“It is a positive and absolute breach of contract!” exclaimed Miss Raybold. “You agreed to remain in my service during my stay in camp, and you have no right to go away now, no matter who else may depart.”

Mrs. Perkenpine grinned. “That sort of thing was all very well a week ago,” said she, “but it won’t work now. I’ve been goin’ to school to myself pretty steady, and I’ve kept myself in a good deal, too, for not knowin’ my lessons, and I’ve drummed into me a pretty good idea of what I be, and I can tell you I’m not a woman as stays here when Phil Matlack’s gone. I’m not a bit scary, but I never stayed in camp yet with all greenhorns but me. When I find myself in that sort of a mess, it’s my nater to get out of it. Phil says he’s goin’ to start the fust thing this afternoon, and that’s the time I’m goin’, and so, if you would like to go, you can send word by that man in the cart to have you and your things sent for, and we can all clear out together.”

“Positively,” exclaimed Corona, turning to the bishop, “this is the most high-handed proceeding I ever heard of!”

“That’s ’xactly what I think,” said Mrs. Perkenpine; “it most takes my breath away to think how high-handed I am. Before I knowed myself I couldn’t have been that way to save my skin. There didn’t use to be any individdlety about me. You might take a quart of huckleberries and ask yourself what it was particular ’bout any one of them huckleberries – ’xceptin’ it might be green, and it’s a long time since I was that way – and you’d know jest as much about that huckleberry as I knowed about myself. Now it’s different. It’s just the same as if there was only one huckleberry in a quart box, and it ain’t no trouble to see all around that.”

“I think, Miss Raybold,” said the bishop, “that this good woman has prosecuted her psychical researches with more effect than any of us.”

“Bosh!” exclaimed Miss Raybold. “Do you really think I must leave this camp at the dictation of that person?”

“’Scuse me,” said Mrs. Perkenpine, “but I’m goin’ to scratch things together for movin’. We’ll have dinner here, and then we’ll pack up and be off as soon as the carts come. That’s what Phil says he’s goin’ to do.”

With a satisfied mind and internal gratitude to Mrs. Perkenpine, who had made everything easy for him, the bishop endeavored to make Corona feel that, as her departure from the camp was inevitable, it would be well not to disturb her mind too much about it. But it was of no use trying to console the lady.

“It is too bad,” she said; “it is humiliating. Here I believed that I was truly myself; that I was an independent entity; that I was free to assert my individual nature and to obey its impulses, and now I find that I am nothing but the slave of a female guide. Actually I must obey her, and I must conform to her!”

“It is true,” said the bishop, musingly, “that although we may discover ourselves, and be greatly pleased with the prospect of what we see, we may not be permitted to enter into its enjoyment, and must content ourselves with looking over the fence and longing for what we see.”

Corona faintly smiled. “When we have climbed high enough to see over that fence,” she said, “it becomes our duty to break it down.”

“When I was in England,” said the bishop, “I saw a fence – an oak fence – which they told me had stood for four hundred years. It looked awfully tough, and it now reminds me of some of the manners and customs of civilization.”

“When you were in England,” said Corona, “did you visit Newnham College?”

He never had. But she told him that she had been there for two years. “And now,” she continued, “there may be time enough before I must pack up my effects to finish what I was going to say to you about approximate assimilations.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HERMITS CONTINUE TO FAVOR ASSOCIATION

When the Archibald party reached the capital city of their State, the four of them took a carriage and drove immediately to the Dearborn residence. Margery had insisted that Mr. Clyde should go with them, so that he and she should present themselves together before her parents. In no other way did she believe that the subject could be properly presented. The Archibalds did not object to this plan; in fact, under the circumstances, they were in favor of it. During the journey young Clyde had produced a very favorable impression upon them. They had always liked him well enough, and now that they examined his character more critically, they could not fail to see that he was a kind-hearted, gentlemanly young man, intelligent and well educated, and, according to private information from Margery, his family was of the best.

Arrived at the Dearborn door, they found the house in the possession of one female servant, who informed them that Mr. Dearborn was in Canada, on a fishing expedition; that Mrs. Dearborn had gone to attend some sort of a congress at Saratoga, and that she did not expect to be at home until the following Friday, three days after, which was the day on which she had expected her daughter to be brought back to her. This was disheartening, and the four stood upon the steps irresolute. Margery ought to go to her mother, but neither of the Archibalds wished to go to Saratoga, nor could they despatch thither the prematurely betrothed couple.

“I know what we must do,” said Mrs. Archibald, “we must go home.”

“But, my dear,” said her husband, “we agreed to stay away for a month, and the month is not yet up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said she. “Kate and her husband will take us in for the few days left. When we explain all that we have gone through, she will not be hard-hearted enough to make us go to a hotel until Friday; Margery can come with us.”

Margery turned upon Mrs. Archibald a pair of eyes filled with earnest inquiry.

“I know what you want,” said Mrs. Archibald. “No, he can go to a hotel in the town; and I shall write to your mother to come to us as soon as she returns; then you two can present yourselves together according to your plans. There is no use talking about it, Hector; it is the only thing we can do.”

“We shall break our word to the newly married,” said her husband. “Isn’t there a State law against that?”

“When we made that arrangement,” said his wife, going down the steps, “we did not know our individual selves; now we do, and the case is different. Kate will understand all that when I explain it to her.”

They drove back to the station, and took a train for home.

Mr. and Mrs. Bringhurst were sitting in the cool library about nine o’clock that evening; he was reading while she was listening, and they were greatly astonished when they heard a carriage drive up to the front door. During their domestic honey-moon they had received no visitors, and they looked at each other and wondered.

“It is a mistake,” said he; “but don’t trouble yourself. Mary has not gone to bed, and she will hear the bell.”

But there was no bell; the door was opened, and in came father and mother, followed by a strange young couple.

“It is wonderful!” exclaimed Kate, when at last everybody had been embraced or introduced. “A dozen times during the last week have we talked about the delight it would give us if our father and mother could be here to be entertained a little while as our guests in our own house – for you gave it to us for a month, you know. But we refrained from sending you an invitation because we did not want to cut off your holiday. And now you are here! The good fairies could not have arranged the matter better.”

When all the tales had been told; when the assertion of individuality and the plans of hermit association had been described and discussed, and the young Bringhursts had told how they, too, without knowing it, had been associate hermits, devoting their time not to the discovery of their own natures, but of the nature of each other, and how perfectly satisfied they had been with the results, it was very late, and young Clyde was not allowed to go out into the darkness to find a hotel.

It was on Thursday afternoon that Mrs. Dearborn arrived at the Archibalds’ house. The letter she had received had made her feel that she could not wait until the end of the congress.

“Now, mother,” said Margery, when the two were alone together, “you have seen him and you have talked to him, and Uncle Hector has told you how he went to the office of Glassborough & Clyde and found he was really their nephew, and all about him and his family; and you have been told precisely why it was necessary that we should engage ourselves so abruptly on account of the violent nature of Mr. Raybold and the trouble he might cause, not only to us, but to dear Aunt Harriet and Uncle Archibald. And now we come just like two of your own children and put the whole matter entirely into your hands and leave you to decide, out of your own heart, exactly when and where we shall be married, and all about it. Then, when father comes home, you can tell him just what you have decided to do. You are our parents, and we leave it to you.”

“What in the world,” said Mrs. Dearborn, an hour later, when she was talking to the two married ladies of the household, “can one do with a girl like that? I do not believe dynamite would blow them apart; and if I thought it would I should not know how to manage it.”

“No,” said Mrs. Archibald, “I am afraid the explosion would be as bad for you as it would be for them.”

“Don’t try it,” said Mrs. Kate. “I take a great interest in that budding bit of felicity; I consider it an outgrowth of our own marriage and honey-moon. When we sent out that wild couple, my father and mother, on a wedding-tour, we did not dream that they would bring back to us a pair of lovers, who never would have been lovers if it had not been for us, and who are now ready for a wedding-tour on their own account, as soon as circumstances may permit. And so, feeling a little right and privilege in the matter, I am going to ask you, Mrs. Dearborn, to let them be married here whenever the wedding-day shall come, and let them start out from this house on their marriage career. Now don’t you think that would be a fine plan? I am sure your daughter will like it, when she remembers what she owes us; and if Mr. Clyde objects I will undertake to make him change his mind.”

When the plan was proposed in full counsel, it was found that there would be no need for the exercise of Mrs. Kate’s powers of persuasion.

About ten days after Mrs. Dearborn and Margery had returned to their home, and Clyde had followed, to move like a satellite in an orbit determined by Mrs. Dearborn, Mr. Archibald was surprised, but also very much pleased, to receive a visit from the bishop.

“I could not refrain,” said that expansive individual, “from coming to you as soon as circumstances would allow, and, while expressing to you the great obligations under which you have placed me, to confide to you my plans and my prospects. You have been so good to me that I believe you will be pleased to know of the life work to which I have determined to devote myself.”