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The Associate Hermits, a novel by Frank R Stockton |
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Chapter 14. The Assertion Of Individuality |
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_ CHAPTER XIV. THE ASSERTION OF INDIVIDUALITY It was a week after her brother had sent her his telegram before Miss Corona Raybold arrived at Camp Rob, with her tent, her outfit, and her female guide. Mrs. Archibald had been surprised that she did not appear sooner, for, considering Mr. Raybold's state of mind, she had supposed that his sister had wished to come at the earliest possible moment. "But," said Raybold, in explaining the delay, "Corona is very different from me. In my actions 'the thunder's roar doth crowd upon the lightning's heels,' as William has told us." "Where in Shakespeare is that?" asked Mrs. Archibald. Mr. Raybold bent his brow. "For the nonce," said he, "I do not recall the exact position of the lines." And after that he made no more Avonian quotations to Mrs. Archibald. The arrival of the young lady was, of course, a very important event, and even Mr. Archibald rowed in from the lake when he saw her caravan approaching, herself walking in the lead. She proved to be a young person of medium height, slight, and dressed in a becoming suit of dark blue. Her hair and eyes were dark, her features regular and of a classic cut, and she wore eye-glasses. Her manner was quiet, and at first she appeared reserved, but she soon showed that if she wished to speak she could talk very freely. She wore an air of dignified composure, but was affable, and very attentive to what was said to her. Altogether she made in a short time an extremely favorable impression upon Mr. and Mrs. Archibald, and in a very much less time an extremely unfavorable impression upon Margery. Miss Raybold greeted everybody pleasantly, even informing Matlack that she had heard of him as a famous guide, and after thanking Mr. and Mrs. Archibald for their permission to set up her tent on the outskirts of their camp, she proceeded to said tent, which was speedily made ready for her. Mrs. Perkenpine, her guide, was an energetic woman, and under her orders the men who brought the baggage bestirred themselves wonderfully. Just before supper, to which meal the Raybolds and Mr. Clyde had been invited, the latter came to Mr. Archibald, evidently much troubled and annoyed. "I am positively ashamed to mention it to you, sir," he said, "but I must tell you that Raybold has ordered the men who brought his sister's tent to bring our tent over here and put it up near her's. I was away when this was done, and I wish to assure you most earnestly that I had nothing to do with it. The men have gone, and I don't suppose we can get it back to-night." Mr. Archibald opened his eyes very wide. "Your friend is certainly a remarkable young man," said he, "but we must not have any bad feeling in camp, so let everything remain as it is for to-night. I suppose he wished to be near his sister, but at least he might have asked permission." "I think," said Clyde, "that he did not so much care to be near his sister as he did to be away from the bishop, who is now left alone in our little shelter-tent." Mr. Archibald laughed. "Well," said he, "he will come to no harm, and we must see that he has some supper." "Oh, I shall attend to that," said Clyde, "and to his breakfast also. And, now I come to think of it, I believe that one reason Raybold moved our tent over here was to get the benefit of his sister's cook. The bishop did our cooking, you know, before he took to his bed." That evening Miss Raybold joined the party around the camp-fire. She declared that in the open air she did not in the least object to the use of tobacco, and then she asked Mr. Archibald if his two guides came to the camp-fire after their work was done. "They do just as they please," was the answer. "Sometimes they come over here and smoke their pipes a little in the background, and sometimes they go off by themselves. We are very democratic here in camp, you know." "I like that," said Miss Raybold, "and I will have Mrs. Perkenpine come over when she has arranged the tent for the night. Arthur, will you go and tell her?" Her brother did not immediately rise to execute this commission. He hoped that Mr. Clyde would offer to do the service, but the latter did not improve the opportunity to make himself agreeable to the new-comer, and Raybold did the errand. Harrison Clyde was sitting by Margery, and Margery was giving a little attention to what he said to her and a great deal of attention to Corona Raybold. "More self-conceit and a better-fitting dress I never saw," thought Margery; "it's loose and easy, and yet it seems to fit perfectly, and I do believe she thinks she is some sort of an upper angel who has condescended to come down here just to see what common people are like." Corona talked to Mr. Archibald. It was her custom always to talk to the principal personage of a party. "It gives me pleasure, sir," said she, "to meet with you and your wife. It is so seldom that we find any one--" She was interrupted by Mrs. Perkenpine, who stood behind her. The she-guide was a large woman, apparently taller than Matlack. Her sunburnt face was partly shaded by a man's straw hat, secured on her head by strings tied under her chin. She wore a very plain gown, coarse in texture, and of a light-blue color, which showed that it had been washed very often. Her voice and her shoes, the latter well displayed by her short skirt, creaked, but her gray eyes were bright, and moved about after the manner of searchlights. "Well," said she to Miss Raybold, "what do you want?" Corona turned her head and placidly gazed up at her. "I simply wished to let you know that you might join this company here if you liked. The two men guides are coming, you see." Mrs. Perkenpine glanced around the group. "Is there any hunting stories to be told?" she asked. Mr. Archibald laughed. "I don't know," he said, "but perhaps we may have some. I am sure that Matlack here has hunting stories to tell." Mrs. Perkenpine shook her head. "No, sir," said she; "I don't want none of his stories. I've heard them all mostly two or three times over." "I dare say you have," said Phil, seating himself on a fallen trunk, a little back from the fire; "but you see, Mrs. Perkenpine, you are so obstinate about keepin' on livin'. If you'd died when you was younger, you wouldn't have heard so many of those stories." "There's been times," said she, "when you was tellin' the story of the bear cubs and the condensed milk, when I wished I had died when I was younger, or else you had." "Perhaps," said Miss Raybold, in a clear, decisive voice, "Mr. Matlack may know hunting stories that will be new to all of us, but before he begins them I have something which I would like to say." "All right," said Mrs. Perkenpine, seating herself promptly upon the ground; "if you're goin' to talk, I'll stay. I'd like to know what kind of things you do talk about when you talk." "I was just now remarking," said Miss Corona, "that I am very glad indeed to meet with those who, like Mr. and Mrs. Archibald, are willing to set their feet upon the modern usages of society (which would crowd us together in a common herd) and assert their individuality." Mr. Archibald looked at the speaker inquiringly. "Of course," said she, "I refer to the fact that you and Mrs. Archibald are on a wedding-journey." At this remark Phil Matlack rose suddenly from the tree-trunk and Martin dropped his pipe. Mr. Clyde turned his gaze upon Margery, who thereupon burst out laughing, and then he looked in amazement from Mr. Archibald to Mrs. Archibald and back again. Mrs. Perkenpine sat up very straight and leaned forward, her hands upon her knees. "Is it them two sittin' over there?" she said, pointing to Margery and Clyde. "Are they on a honey-moon?" "No!" exclaimed Arthur Raybold, in a loud, sharp voice. "What an absurdity! Corona, what are you talking about?" To this his sister paid no attention whatever. "I think," she said, "it was a noble thing to do. An assertion of one's inner self is always noble, and when I heard of this assertion I wished very much to know the man and the woman who had so asserted themselves, and this was my principal reason for determining to come to this camp." "But where on earth," asked Mr. Archibald, "did you hear that we were on a wedding-journey?" "I read it in a newspaper," said Corona. "I do declare," exclaimed Mrs. Archibald, "everything is in the newspapers! I did think that we might settle down here and enjoy ourselves without people talking about our reason for coming!" "You don't mean to say," cried Mrs. Perkenpine, now on her feet, "that you two elderly ones is the honey-mooners?" "Yes," said Mr. Archibald, looking with amusement on the astonished faces about him, "we truly are." "Well," said the she-guide, seating herself, "if I'd stayed an old maid as long as that, I think I'd stuck it out. But perhaps you was a widow, mum?" "No, indeed," cried Mr. Archibald; "she was a charming girl when I married her. But just let me tell you how the matter stands," and he proceeded to relate the facts of the case. "I thought," he said, in conclusion, turning to Matlack, "that perhaps you knew about it, for I told Mr. Sadler, and I supposed he might have mentioned it to you." "No, sir," said Matlack, relighting his pipe, "he knows me better than that. If he'd called me and said, 'Phil, I want you to take charge of a couple that's goin' honey-moonin' about twenty-five years after they married, and a-doin' it for somebody else and not for themselves,' I'd said to him, 'They're lunatics, and I won't take charge of them.' And Peter he knows I would have thought that and would have said it, and so he did not mention the particulars to me. He knows that the only things that I'm afraid of in this world is lunatics. 'Tisn't only what they might do to me, but what they might do to themselves, and I won't touch 'em." "I hope," said Mrs. Archibald, "that you don't consider us lunatics now that you have heard why we are here." "Oh no," said the guide; "I've found that you're regular common-sense people, and I don't change my opinions even when I've heard particulars; but if I'd heard particulars first, it would have been all up with my takin' charge of you." "And you knew it all the time?" said Clyde to Margery, speaking so that she only could hear. "I knew it," she said, "but I didn't think it worth talking about. Do you know Mr. Raybold's sister? Do you like her?" "I have met her," said Clyde; "but she is too lofty for me." "What is there lofty about her?" said Margery. "Well," said he, "she is lofty because she has elevated ideas. She goes in for reform; and for pretty much all kinds, from what I have heard." "I think she is lofty," remarked Margery, "because she is stuck-up. I don't like her." "It is so seldom," Corona now continued, "that we find people who are willing to assert their individuality, and when they are found I always want to talk to them. I suppose, Mr. Matlack, that your life is one long assertion of individuality?" "What, ma'am?" asked the guide. "I mean," said she, "that when you are out alone in the wild forest, holding in your hand the weapon which decides the question of life or death for any living creature over whom you may choose to exercise your jurisdiction, absolutely independent of every social trammel, every bond of conventionalism, you must feel that you are a predominant whole and not a mere integral part." "Well," said Matlack, speaking slowly, "I may have had them feelin's, but if I did they must have struck in, and not come out on the skin, like measles, where I could see 'em." "Corona," said her brother, in a peevish undertone, "what is the good of all that? You're wasting your words on such a man." His sister turned a mild steady gaze upon him. "I don't know any man but you," she said, "on whom I waste my words." "Is assertin' like persistin'?" inquired Mrs. Perkenpine at this point. "The two actions are somewhat alike," said Corona. "Well, then," said the she-guide, "I'm in for assertin'. When my husband was alive there was a good many things I wanted to do, and when I wanted to do a thing or get a thing I kept on sayin' so; and one day, after I'd been keepin' on sayin' so a good while, he says to me, 'Jane,' says he, 'it seems to me that you're persistin'.' 'Yes,' says I, 'I am, and I intend to be.' 'Then you are goin' to keep on insistin' on persistin'?' says he. 'Yes,' says I; and then says he, 'If you keep on insistin' on persistin' I'll be thinkin' of 'listin'.' By which he meant goin' into the army as a regular, and gettin' rid of me; and as I didn't want to be rid of him, I stopped persistin'; but now I wish I had persisted, for then he'd 'listed, and most likely would be alive now, through not bein' shot in the back by a city fool with a gun." "I do not believe," said Mrs. Archibald to her husband, when they had retired to their cabin, "that that young woman is going to be much of a companion for Margery. I think she will prefer your society to that of any of the rest of us. It is very plain that she thinks it is your individuality which has been asserted." "Well," said he, rubbing his spectacles with his handkerchief before putting them away for the night, "don't let her project her individuality into my sport. That's all I have to say." _ |
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