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[Illustration: THE SUPPER [Page 37]]
THE
ASSOCIATE HERMITS
By
Frank R. Stockton
Author of
"The Great Stone of Sardis"
With Illustrations by A. B. Frost
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1900
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS. A Novel.
Illustrated by Peter Newell. Post 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1 50.
"The Great Stone of Sardis" is as queer and preposterous as
can be imagined, yet as plausible and real-seeming as a legal
document.... There is a treat in the book.--_Independent_, N. Y.
A new and worthy example of Stockton's kindly, wholesome,
original, and inexhaustible humor.--_Syracuse Post._
Narrated with a seriousness that gives the adventures a semblance
of matters of fact. Through the narrative runs a love interest which
Mr. Stockton manages with great skill.--_Washington Post._
NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Dawn of a Wedding-journey 1
II. Enter Margery 7
III. Sadler's 15
IV. A Cataract of Information 23
V. Camp Rob 35
VI. Camp Roy 42
VII. A Stranger 52
VIII. The Bishop's Tale 63
IX. Matlack's Three Troubles 74
X. A Ladies' Day in Camp 82
XI. Margery Takes the Oars 90
XII. The Bishop Engages the Attention of the Guides 100
XIII. The World Goes Wrong with Mr. Raybold 105
XIV. The Assertion of Individuality 113
XV. A Net of Cobwebs to Cage a Lion 123
XVI. A Man who Feels Himself a Man 135
XVII. Mrs. Perkenpine Asserts Her Individuality 143
XVIII. The Hermits Associate 153
XIX. Margery's Breakfast 161
XX. Martin Asserts His Individuality 173
XXI. The Individuality of Peter Sadler 185
XXII. A Tranquillizing Breeze and a Hot Wind 194
XXIII. Mrs. Perkenpine Finds out Things about Herself 205
XXIV. A Dissolving Audience 212
XXV. A Moonlight Interview 220
XXVI. An Elopement 229
XXVII. Mrs. Perkenpine Delights the Bishop 239
XXVIII. The Hermits Continue to Favor Association 248
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE SUPPER Frontispiece
"'CAN THIS BE SADLER'S?'" 16
"'THEY THROW THE OTHER THINGS BACK'" 54
"A LESSON IN FLY-FISHING" 80
"BUT THE BISHOP KNEW BETTER" 98
"WITH A GREAT HEAVE SENT HIM OUT INTO THE WATER" 102
"'WHERE ARE ALL OUR FRIENDS?'" 150
"'HAVEN'T TRIED IT'" 202
"'IF THEY AIN'T THE CAMP ROBBERS!'" 232
THE ASSOCIATE HERMITS
CHAPTER I
THE DAWN OF A WEDDING-JOURNEY
Mr. and Mrs. Hector Archibald were prosperous and happy dwellers in a
suburb of one of our large towns. Fortune had favored them in many
ways--in health and in a good average happiness. They had reached early
middle age, and their daughter Kate, their only child, had grown up to be
a beautiful and good young woman, and was on the point of marrying a young
lawyer--Rodney Bringhurst by name--in every way worthy of her.
Hector Archibald was a little man, with small bright eyes, and hair
slightly touched with gray and very much inclined to curl. His disposition
was lively. He had a strong liking for cheerful occurrences, and was
always willing to do his part in the bringing about of such events.
Novelty had a charm for him. He was not bound by precedence and tradition,
and if he had found himself at a dinner which began with coffee and ended
with oysters on the half-shell, he would have given the unusual meal a
most animated consideration, although he might have utterly withheld any
subsequent approbation. As a general thing, he revolved in an orbit where
one might always be able to find him, were the proper calculations made.
But if any one drew a tangent for him, and its direction seemed suitable
and interesting, he was perfectly willing to fly off on it.
The disposition of Mrs. Hector Archibald was different. She was born to be
guided by customs, fashions, and forms. She believed it was the duty of a
married woman to make her home happy, and she did it. But she also
believed that in the best domestic circles there were rules and usages for
domestic happiness which would apply to every domestic condition and
contingency. It frequently troubled her, however, to find that certain
customs, forms, or usages of domestic society had changed, and being of a
conservative turn of mind, it was difficult for her to adapt herself to
these changes. But, thoroughly loyal to the idea that what was done by
people she loved and people she respected ought also to be done by her,
she earnestly strove to fit herself to new conditions, especially when she
saw that by not doing so she would be out of touch with her family and her
friends.
Now of course the wedding of their daughter was the only thing in the
world that seemed of real importance to Mr. and Mrs. Archibald, and for
this all preparations and plans had been agreed upon and made with great
good-will and harmony, excepting one thing, and that was the wedding-trip.
Strange to say, the young people did not wish to take a wedding-trip. They
believed that this old-fashioned custom was unnecessary, troublesome,
commonplace, and stupid. In the gardens and grounds of the Archibald
mansion, and in the beautiful surrounding country, they had loved each
other as lovers, and among these scenes they wished to begin to love each
other as a married couple. Why should such distasteful and unpleasant
ingredients as railroad-cars, steamboats, and hotels be dashed into the
pleasing mixture of their new lives? It had been arranged that for a year
or two, at least, they should live in Kate's dear old home, and why should
they not immediately begin that life there?
Mr. Archibald did not favor this plan, and his wife was strongly opposed
to it. A wedding without a wedding-trip ought not to be thought of.
"During the honey-moon a young couple should live for each other, with
each other, apart from the rest of the world. It is a beautiful custom,
which should not be rudely trampled upon," said Mrs. Archibald.
But although Mrs. Archibald cherished a belief that she ought to conform
her ideas to the domestic customs of the day, her daughter Kate cherished
the belief that the domestic customs of the day ought to conform
themselves to her ideas.
"Of course we should like to be alone in the honey-moon," she exclaimed.
"We don't object to that; and if there must be a wedding-journey, you and
father can take it and we will stay here. Here are servants, books, things
to eat, and everything our hearts can desire, and here we would really
feel as if we were beginning life as man and wife. As for you two, you
both need a vacation, and nothing could be more perfectly appropriate and
more delightful to everybody than that you should take our wedding-trip.
We don't want it; we will make it a present to you. Take it and be happy,
and leave us here to be happy. People have done this sort of thing before,
so that it is not absolutely wild and unheard of."
Mr. Archibald welcomed this plan with open arms, and hugged it and his
daughter to his breast. It suited him admirably, and he declared that all
business and engagements of every kind should be set aside, and that he
would be ready to start on the wedding-journey with Mrs. Archibald the
moment the ceremony should be completed.
"You will wait until the reception is over, father?" said Kate, laughing.
"Yes," said he, "I will wait for that."
This novel proposition sent a chill through every fibre of Mrs.
Archibald's physical organism. At first she did not exactly comprehend it,
but when she did, the chills increased. When she had recovered herself a
little she began to make objections. This was easy enough, for they
crowded into her mind like sheep into a pen; but every objection, as she
brought it forth, was ruthlessly set aside or crushed to earth by her
daughter or her husband, assisted by her expectant son-in-law, of whom she
declared she never would have believed such a thing had she been told it.
The discussion ended, of course, by Mrs. Archibald agreeing to go on this
absurd wedding-journey. But the good lady's mental troubles were not over
when she had given her consent. As this scheme had been devised by those
dearest to her on earth, and as it was certain, these dearest persons
assured her, to meet with the approbation of all people of advanced
thought--at least of those whose thought had advanced far enough to make
it worthy of their consideration--she felt that in doing her part she
ought to do it honestly and with her whole heart; and at her time of life,
to act as a proxy for a young bride by taking a wedding-journey in that
young bride's place was a very difficult thing for Mrs. Archibald to do
honestly and with her whole heart. But she would try to do it. Whatever
else happened, her family must be kept happy, and it should never be said
of her that she hung like a millstone around the combined neck of that
family when it was unitedly climbing towards altitudes of felicity, which,
although she was not able to discern them, must exist, since that fact had
been so earnestly insisted upon by Mr. Archibald, Kate, and Rodney
Bringhurst.
Thus was this exceptional hymeneal performance decided upon, and at eleven
o'clock on Wednesday, the 6th of June, the marriage service was performed.
At noon the guests sat down to breakfast, and at two o'clock that
afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Hector Archibald departed on the wedding-trip,
leaving behind Mr. and Mrs. Bringhurst at home with each other, and "not
at home" to the world.