Loe raamatut: «The Associate Hermits», lehekülg 10

He spoke with such hot earnestness that Margery involuntarily drew herself a little away from him. At this the flush went out of his face.

“Oh, Miss Dearborn,” he exclaimed, “don’t think that I am like that man out there! Don’t think that I will persecute you if you don’t wish to hear me; that I will follow you about and make your life miserable. If you say to me that you do not wish to see me again, you will never see me again. Say what you please, and you will find that I am a gentleman.”

She could see that now. She felt sure that if she told him she did not wish ever to see him again he would never appear before her. But what would he do? She was not in the least afraid of him, but his fierce earnestness frightened her, not for herself, but for him. Suddenly a thought struck her.

“Martin,” said she, “I don’t doubt in the least that what you have said to me about yourself is true. You are as good as other people, although you do happen now to be a guide, and perhaps after a while you may be very well off; but for all that you are a guide, and you are in Mr. Sadler’s employment, and Mr. Sadler’s rights and powers are just like gas escaping from a pipe: they are everywhere from cellar to garret, so to speak, and you couldn’t escape them. It would be a bad, bad thing for you, Martin, if he were to hear that you make propositions of the kind you have made to the ladies that he pays you to take out into the woods to guide and to protect.”

Martin was on the point of a violent expostulation, but she stopped him.

“Now I know what you are going to say,” she exclaimed, “but it isn’t of any use. You are in his employment, and you are bound to honor and to respect him; that is the way a guide can show himself to be a gentleman.”

“But suppose,” said Martin, quickly, “that he, knowing my family as he does, should think I had done wisely in speaking to you.”

A cloud came over her brow. It annoyed her that he should thus parry her thrust.

“Well, you can ask him,” she said, abruptly; “and if he doesn’t object, you can go to see my mother, when she gets home, and ask her. And here comes Mr. Matlack. I think he has been calling you. Now don’t say another word, unless it is about fish.”

But Matlack did not come; he stopped and called, and Martin went to him.

Margery walked languidly towards the woods and sat down on the projecting root of a large tree. Then leaning back against the trunk, she sighed.

“It is a perfectly dreadful thing to be a girl,” she said; “but I am glad I did not speak to him as I did to Mr. Raybold. I believe he would have jumped into the lake.”

CHAPTER XXI
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF PETER SADLER

“Martin,” said Matlack, sharply, before the young man had reached him, “it seems to me that you think that you have been engaged here as lady’s-maid, but there’s other things to do besides teaching young women about trees and fishes. If you think,” continued Matlack, when the two had reached the woodland kitchen, “that your bein’ a hermit is goin’ to let you throw all the work on me, you’re mistaken. There’s a lot of potatoes that’s got to be peeled for dinner.”

Without a word Martin sat down on the ground with a pan of potatoes in front of him and began to work. Had he been a proud crusader setting forth to fight the Saracens his blood could not have coursed with greater warmth and force, his soul could not have more truly spurned the earth and all the common things upon it. What he had said to Margery had made him feel ennobled. If Raybold had that instant appeared before him with some jeering insult, Martin would have pardoned him with lofty scorn; and yet he peeled potatoes, and did it well. But his thoughts were not upon his work; they were upon the future which, if he proved himself to be the man he thought himself to be, might open before him. When he had finished the potatoes he put the pan upon a table and stood near by, deep in thought.

“Yes,” said he to himself, “I should go now. After what I have said to her I cannot stay here and live this life before her. I would wait on her with bended knee at every step, but with love for her in my soul I cannot wash dishes for other people. I have spoken, and now I must act; and the quicker the better. If all goes well I may be here again, but I shall not come back as a guide.” Then a thought of Raybold crossed his mind, but he put it aside. Even if he stayed here he could not protect her, for she had shown that she did not wish him to do it in the only way he could do it, and he felt sure, too, that any further annoyance would result in an appeal to Mr. Archibald.

“Well,” said Matlack, sharply, “what’s the matter with you? Don’t you intend to move?”

“Yes,” said Martin, turning quickly, “I do intend to move. I am going to leave this camp just as soon as I can pack my things.”

“And where in the name of thunder are you goin’ to?”

“I’m going to Sadler’s,” said Martin.

“What for?”

“On my own business,” was the reply.

Matlack looked at him for a moment suspiciously. “Have you got any complaints to make of me?” he said.

“No,” said Martin, promptly, “not one; but I have affairs on hand which will take me off immediately.”

“Before dinner?” asked Matlack.

“Yes,” said the other, “before dinner; now.”

“Go ahead then,” said Matlack, putting some sticks of wood into the stove; “and tell Sadler that if he don’t send me somebody before supper-time to help about this camp, he’ll see me. I’ll be hanged,” he said to himself, as he closed the door of the stove, “if this isn’t hermitism with a vengeance. I wonder who’ll be the next one to cut and run; most likely it will be Mrs. Perkenpine.”

Early in the afternoon, warm and dusty, Martin presented himself before Peter Sadler, who was smoking his pipe on the little shaded piazza at the back of the house.

“Oh, ho!” said Peter. “How in the name of common-sense did you happen to turn up at this minute? This is about as queer a thing as I’ve known of lately. What did you come for? Sit down.”

“Mr. Sadler,” said Martin, “I have come here on most important business.”

“Lake dry?” asked Peter.

“It is a matter,” said Martin, “which concerns myself; and if all the lakes in the world were dry, I would not be able to think about them, so full is my soul of one thing.”

“By the Lord Harry,” said Peter, “let’s have it, quick!”

In a straightforward manner, but with an ardent vehemence which he could not repress, Martin stated his business with Peter Sadler. He told him how he loved Margery, what he had said to her, and what she had said to him.

“And now,” said the young man, “I have come to ask your permission to address her; but whether you give it or not I shall go to her mother and speak to her. I know her address, and I intend to do everything in an honorable way.”

Peter Sadler put down his pipe and looked steadfastly at the young man. “I wish to Heaven,” said he, “that there was a war goin’ on! I’d write a letter to the commander-in-chief and let you take it to him, and I’d tell him you was the bravest man between Hudson Bay and Patagonia. By George! I can’t understand it! I can’t understand how you could have the cheek, the unutterable brass, to come here and ask me – me, Peter Sadler – to let you court one of the ladies in a campin’-party of mine. And, what’s more, I can’t understand how I can sit here and hear you tell me that tale without picking up a chair and knocking you down with it.”

“Mr. Sadler,” said Martin, rising, “I have spoken to you fairly and squarely, and if that’s all you’ve got to say, I will go.”

“Sit down!” roared Peter, bringing his hand upon the table as if he would drive it’s legs through the floor. “Sit down, and listen to what I have to say to you. It’s the strangest thing that ever happened to me that I am not more angry with you than I am; but I can’t understand it, and I pass it by. Now that you are seated again, I will make some remarks on my side. Do you see that?” said he, picking up a letter on the table. “Do you see who it is addressed to?”

“To me!” exclaimed Martin, in surprise.

“Yes, it’s to you,” said Peter, “and I wrote it, and I intended to send it by Bill Hammond this afternoon. That’s the reason I was surprised when I saw you here. But I’m not goin’ to give it to you; I’d rather tell you what’s in it, now you are here. Before I knew you were the abject ninnyhammer that you have just told me you are I had a good opinion of you, and thought that you were cut out to make a first-class traveller and explorer – the sort of a fellow who could lead a surveying expedition through the wilderness, or work up new countries and find out what they are made of and what’s in them. Only yesterday I heard of a chance that ought to make you jump, and this morning I wrote to you about it. A friend of mine, who’s roughed it with me for many a day, is goin’ to take an expedition down into New Mexico in the interests of a railroad and minin’ company. They want to know everything about the country – the game, fish, trees, and plants, as well as the minerals – and it struck me that if you are not just the kind of man they want you could make yourself so in a very short time. They’d pay you well enough, and you’d have a chance to dip into natural history, and all that sort of thing, that you had no reason to expect for a dozen years to come, if it ever came. If such a chance had been offered to me at your age I wouldn’t have changed lots with a king. All you’ve got to do is to pack up and be off. The party starts from New York in just three days; I’ll give you a letter to Joe Hendricks, and that’ll be all you want. He knows me well enough to take you without a word. If you haven’t got money enough saved to fit yourself out for the trip I’ll lend you some, and you can pay me back when they pay you. You can take the train this afternoon and maybe you can see Hendricks to-night. So pack up what you want and leave what you don’t want, and I’ll take care of it. I’ll write to Hendricks now.”

Many times did the face of Martin flush and pale as he listened. A vision of Paradise had been opened before him, but he felt that he must shut his eyes.

“Mr. Sadler,” he said, “you are very kind. You offer me a great thing – a thing which two weeks ago I should have accepted in the twinkling of an eye, and would have thanked you for all the rest of my life; but I cannot take it now. With all my heart I love a woman; I have told her so, and I am now going on the path she told me to take. I cannot turn aside from that for any prospects in the world.”

Peter Sadler’s face grew red, and then it grew black, and then it turned red again, and finally resumed its ordinary brown.

“Martin Sanders,” said he, speaking quietly, but with one hand fastened upon the arm of his chair with a grasp which a horse could not have loosened, “if you are cowardly enough and small enough and paltry enough to go to a girl who is living in peace and comfort and ask her to marry you, when you know perfectly well that for years to come you could not give her a decent roof over her head, and that if her family wanted her to live like a Christian they would have to give her the money to do it with; and if you are fool enough not to know that when she sent you first to me and then to her mother she was tryin’ to get rid of you without hurtin’ your feelin’s, why, then, I want you to get out of my sight, and the quicker the better. But if you are not so low down as that, go to your room and pack up your bag. The coach will start for the train at three o’clock, and it is now nearly half-past two; that will just give me time to write to Hendricks. Go!”

Martin rose. Whatever happened afterwards, he must go now. It seemed to him as if the whole world had suddenly grown colder; as if he had been floating in a fog and had neared an iceberg. Could it be possible that she had spoken, as she had spoken, simply to get rid of him? He could not believe it. No one with such honest eyes could speak in that way; and yet he did not know what to believe.

In any case, he would go away in the coach. He had spoken to Sadler, and now, whether he spoke to any one else or not, the sooner he left the better.

When he came to take the coach, Peter Sadler, who had rolled himself to the front of the house, handed him the letter he had written.

“I believe you are made of the right kind of stuff,” he said, “although you’ve got a little mouldy by bein’ lazy out there in the woods, but you’re all right now; and what you’ve got to do is to go ahead with a will, and, take my word for it, you’ll come out on top. Do you want any money? No? Very well, then, goodbye. You needn’t trouble yourself to write to me, I’ll hear about you from Hendricks; and I’d rather know what he thinks about you than what you think about yourself.”

“How little you know,” thought Martin, as he entered the coach, “what I am or what I think about myself. As if my purpose could be changed by words of yours!” And he smiled a smile which would have done justice to Arthur Raybold. The chill had gone out of him; he was warm again.

On the train he read the letter to Hendricks which Peter Sadler had given to him unsealed. It was a long letter, and he read it twice. Then he sat and gazed out of the window at the flying scenery for nearly half an hour, after which he read the letter again. Then he folded it up and put it into his pocket.

“If she had given me the slightest reason to hope,” he said to himself, “how easy it would be to tear this letter into scraps.”

Now an idea came into his mind. If he could see her mother quickly, and if she should ignore his honorable intentions and refuse to give him the opportunity to prove that he was worthy of a thought from her and her daughter, then it might not be too late to fall back on Peter Sadler’s letter. But he shook his head; that would be dishonorable and unworthy of him.

He shut his eyes; he could not bear to look at the brightness of the world outside the window of the car. Under his closed lids there came to him visions, sometimes of Margery and sometimes of the forests of New Mexico. Sometimes the visions were wavering, uncertain, and transitory, and again they were strong and vivid – so plain to him that he could almost hear the leaves rustle as some wild creature turned a startled look upon him.

That night he delivered his letter to Mr. Hendricks.

CHAPTER XXII
A TRANQUILLIZING BREEZE AND A HOT WIND

After Martin had left her, Margery sat on the root of the tree until Mr. Clyde came up and said he had been wondering what had become of her.

“I have been wondering that, myself,” she said. “At least, I have been wondering what is going to become of me.”

“Don’t you intend to be a hermit?” said he.

She shook her head. “I don’t think it is possible,” she answered. “There is no one who is better satisfied to be alone, and who can make herself happier all by herself, and who, in all sorts of ways, can get along better without other people than I can, and yet other people are continually interfering with me, and I cannot get away from them.”

Clyde smiled. “That is a pretty plain hint,” he said. “I suppose I might as well take it, and go off to some hermitage of my own.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Margery. “Don’t be so awfully quick in coming to conclusions. I do feel worried and troubled and bothered, and I want some one to talk to; not about things which worry me, of course, but about common, ordinary things, that will make me forget.”

A slight shade came over the face of Mr. Clyde, and he seated himself on the ground near Margery. “It is a shame,” said he, “that you should be worried. What is it in this peaceable, beautiful forest troubles you?”

“Did you ever hear of a paradise without snakes?” she asked. “The very beauty of it makes them come here.”

“I have never yet known any paradise at all,” he replied. “But can’t you tell me what it is that troubles you?”

Margery looked at him with her clear, large eyes. “I’ll tell you,” she said, “if you will promise not to do a single thing without my permission.”

“I promise that,” said Clyde, eagerly.

“I am troubled by people making love to me.”

“People!” exclaimed Clyde, with a puzzled air.

“Yes,” said she. “Your cousin is one of them.”

“I might have supposed that; but who on earth can be the other one?”

“That is Martin,” said Margery.

For a moment Mr. Clyde did not seem to understand, and then he exclaimed: “You don’t mean the young man who cuts wood and helps Matlack?”

“Yes, I do,” she answered. “And you need not shut your jaw hard and grit your teeth that way. That is exactly what he did when he found out about Mr. Raybold. It is of no use to get angry, for you can’t do anything without my permission; and, besides, I tell you that if I were condemned by a court to be made love to, I would much rather have Martin make it than Mr. Raybold. Martin is a good deal more than a guide; he has a good education, and would not be here if it were not for his love of nature. He is going to make nature his object in life, and there is something noble in that; a great deal better than trying to strut about on the stage.”

“And those two have really been making love to you?” asked Clyde.

“Yes, really,” she answered. “You never saw people more in earnest in all your life. As for Mr. Raybold, he was as earnest as a cat after a bird. He made me furiously angry. Martin was different. He is just as earnest, but he is more of a gentleman; and when I told him what I wanted him to do, he said he would do it. But there is no use in telling your cousin what I want him to do. He is determined to persecute me and make me miserable, and there is no way of stopping it, except by making a quarrel between him and Uncle Archibald. It is a shame!” she went on, “Who could have thought that two people would have turned up to disturb me in this way.”

“Margery,” said Mr. Clyde, and although he called her by her Christian name she took no notice of it, “you think you have too many lovers: but you are mistaken. You have not enough; you ought to have three.”

She looked at him inquiringly.

“Yes,” he said, quickly, “and I want to be the third.”

“And so make matters three times as bad as they were at first?” she asked.

“Not at all,” said he. “When you have chosen one of them, he could easily keep away the two others.”

“Do you mean,” said Margery, “that if I were to agree to have three, and then, if I were to ask you to do it, you would go away quietly with one of the others and leave me in peace with the third one?”

Mr. Clyde half smiled, but instantly grew serious again, and a flush came on his face. “Margery,” said he, “I cannot bear trifling any more about this. No matter what anybody has said to you, whether it is any one in this camp or any one out of it, there is not a man in this world who – ”

“Oh, Mr. Clyde,” interrupted Margery, “you must not sit there and speak to me in such an excited way. If any one should see us they would think we were quarrelling. Let us go down to the lake; the air from the water is cool and soothing.”

Together they walked from under the shade of the tree, and so wended their way that it brought them to a mass of shrubbery which edged the water a little distance down the lake. On the other side of this shrubbery was a pretty bank, which they had seen before.

“It always tranquillizes me,” said Margery, as they stood side by side on the bank, “to look out over the water. Doesn’t it have that effect on you?”

“No!” exclaimed Clyde. “It does not tranquillize me a bit. Nothing could tranquillize me at a moment like this. Margery, I want you to know that I love you. I did not intend to tell you so soon, but what you have said makes it necessary. I have loved you ever since I met you at Peter Sadler’s, and, no matter what you say about it, I shall love you to the end of my life.”

“Even if I should send you away with one of the others?”

“Yes; no matter what you did.”

“That would be wrong,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. Right or wrong, I’d do it.”

Margery gave him a glance from which it would have been impossible to eliminate all signs of admiration. “And if I were to arrange it otherwise,” she said, “would you undertake to keep the others away?”

There was no answer to this question, but in a minute afterwards Clyde exclaimed: “Do you think any one would dare to come near you if they saw you now?”

“Hardly,” said Margery, raising her head from his shoulder and looking up into his sparkling eyes. “Really, Harrison, you ought not to speak in such a loud voice. If Aunt Harriet were to hear you she might dare to come.”

Margery was late to dinner, although the horn was blown three times.

Much to the surprise of his wife, Mr. Archibald returned to camp about an hour before dinner.

“How is this?” she exclaimed. “Wasn’t the fishing good?”

“I have had a disagreeable experience,” he said, “and I will tell you about it. I was fishing in a little cove some distance down the lake and having good sport, when I heard a thumping, and looking around I saw Raybold in a boat rowing towards me. I suppose he thought he was rowing, but he was really floating with the current; but as he neared me he suddenly pulled his boat towards me with such recklessness that I was afraid he would run into me. I considered his rowing into the cove to be a piece of bad manners, for of course it would spoil my fishing, but I had no idea he actually intended to lay alongside of me. This he did, however, and so awkwardly that his boat struck mine with such force that it half tipped it over. Then he lay hold of my gunwale, and said he had something to say to me.

“I was as angry as if a man in the street had knocked my hat down over my eyes and said that he did so in order to call my attention to a subscription paper. But this indignation was nothing to what I felt when the fellow began to speak. I cannot repeat his words, but he stated his object at once, and said that as this was a good opportunity to speak to me alone, he wished to ask me to remove what he called the utterly useless embargo which I had placed upon him in regard to Margery. He said it was useless because he could not be expected to give up his hopes and his plans simply because I objected to them; and he went on to say that if I understood him fully, and if Margery understood him, he did not believe that either of us would object. And then he actually asked me to use my influence with her to make her listen to him. From what he said, I am sure he has been speaking to her. I did not let him finish, but turned and blazed at him in words as strong as would come to me. I ordered him never to speak to me again or show himself in my camp, and told him that if he did either of these things he would do them at his peril; and then, for fear he might say something which would make me lose control of myself, I jerked up my anchor and rowed away from him. I didn’t feel like fishing any more, and so I came back.”

“His behavior is shameful,” said Mrs. Archibald. “And what is more, it is ridiculous, for Margery would not look at him. What sort of a man does he think you are, to suppose that you would give your permission to any one, no matter who he might be, to offer marriage to a young lady in your charge? But what are you going to do about it? I think it very likely he will come to this camp, and he may speak to you.”

“In that case I shall have him driven out,” said Mr. Archibald, “as if he were a drunken vagabond. Personally I shall have nothing to do with him, but I shall order my guides to eject him.”

“I hope that may not be necessary,” said his wife. “It would make bad feeling, and deeply wound his sister, for it would be the same thing as putting her out. She talks too much, to be sure, but she is a lady, and has treated us all very courteously. I wish we could get through the rest of our stay here without any disturbance or bad feeling.”

“I wish so too, with all my heart,” said her husband. “And the only thing necessary to that end is that that ass Raybold shall keep out of my sight.”

It was about two o’clock that afternoon, and Mrs. Archibald, under her tree, her basket of stockings all darned and her novel at its culminating point of interest, was the only visible occupant of Camp Rob, when Corona Raybold came walking towards her, an obvious purpose in her handsome face, which was somewhat flushed by exercise.

“I do not think,” she said, as soon as she was near enough for Mrs. Archibald to hear her, “that the true purpose and intention of our plan is properly understood by all of the party. I think, after some explanation, everything will go well, but I have been endeavoring for the last half-hour to find Mrs. Perkenpine, and have utterly failed. I am very hungry, but I can discover nothing to eat. All our stores appear to be absolutely raw, or in some intermediate state of crudity. I intend to order some provisions in cans or boxes which will be at all times available, but I have not done so yet, and so I have come over to speak to you about the matter. Did your guides prepare your dinner as usual?”

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Archibald. “A hermit life seems to make no difference with Mr. Matlack. We become associates at meal-times, but, as you see, we have separated again.”

“I must instil into Mrs. Perkenpine’s mind,” said Corona, “that, in order thoroughly to act out her own nature, she must cook and do other things of a domestic character. Of course she will do those things in her own way; that is to be expected; but she must do them. It is impossible to imagine a woman of her class whose soul is not set more or less upon domestic affairs. I will instance Mr. Matlack. His nature belongs to the woods and the out-of-door world, and that nature prompts him to cook what he shoots.”

Mrs. Archibald laughed. “I think his nature is a very good one,” she said, “and I will go with you to find him and see if he cannot give you a luncheon, if not a dinner.”

“Thank you very much,” said Corona; “but indeed I do not wish to trouble you. I will go to him myself. You are very kind, but it is not in the least degree necessary for you to accompany me. A cup of tea and some little trifle is all I shall ask him for.”

For a moment Mrs. Archibald hesitated, and then she said, “As we are hermits, I suppose we must not keep together any more than we can help, and so I will let you go alone.”

Corona found Phil Matlack by his kitchen tent, busily engaged in rubbing the inside of a large kettle. He was not in a good humor. The departure of Martin had thrown all the work of his camp upon him, and now the appearance of a person from another camp requesting to be fed aroused him to absolute anger. He did not scold, for it would have been impossible to look at that beautiful and imperturbable face and say hard words to it. He did not refuse the cup of tea or the bread-and-butter for which he was asked, and he even added some cold meat; but he indignantly made up his mind that he would stand no more of this nonsense, and that if necessary he would go to Sadler and throw up the job. He had not engaged to cook for three camps.

Miss Raybold did not appear to notice his state of mind, and ate heartily. She thought it was fortunate that he happened to have the kettle on the stove, and she asked him how he liked the hermit life – the living for himself alone.

“Haven’t tried it,” he answered, curtly.

“I understand,” said Corona, “you have had to live too much for other people; but it is too soon to expect our plan to run smoothly. In a short time, however, we shall be better able to know our own natures and show them to others.”

“Oh, I can do that,” said he; “and I am goin’ to, precious soon.”

“I have no doubt of it,” she answered. “And now can you tell me where Mr. Archibald has gone? I did not see him this morning, and there are some matters I wish to speak to him about.”

“No, miss,” said Matlack, promptly, “I don’t know where he is. He’s a real hermit. He’s off by himself, most likely miles away.”

Corona reflected. “Mr. – the bishop? Have you seen him? He may be able to – ”

The guide grinned grimly. He had seen the man of muscle – not fat – conversing that morning with Corona, and an hour afterwards he had seen him, not in the same place, but in the same companionship, and it gave him a certain pleasure to know that the man who could heave rocks and break young trees could not relieve himself from the thralls of the lady of the flowing speech.

“The bishop?” said he. “Don’t you know where he went to?”

“He left me,” she answered, “because he was obliged to go to prepare dinner for my brother and Mr. Clyde; but he is not in Camp Roy now, for I went there to look for Mrs. Perkenpine.”

“Well,” said the wicked Matlack, pointing to the spot where, not long before, Margery had found a tranquillizing breeze, “I saw him going along with a book a little while ago, and I think he went down to the shore, just beyond that clump of bushes over there. He seems to be a man who likes readin’, which isn’t a bad thing for a hermit.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Raybold, rising. “I do not care for anything more. You are very kind, and I am quite sure I shall not have to trouble you again. To-morrow everything will be running smoothly.”

Matlack looked at her as she quietly walked away. “She’s a pretty sort of a hermit,” he said to himself. “If she really had to live by herself she’d cut out a wooden man and talk to it all day. It won’t be long before she accidentally stumbles over that big fellow with his book.”