The Associate Hermits

by Frank R. Stockton

Mrs. Archibald had been a little fearful that under these primitive conditions the two men might expect to sit at the table with them, but she need have had no such fears. Matlack and Martin cooked and waited with a skill and deftness which would have surprised any one who did not reflect that this was as much their business as hunting or woodcraft.

After supper a camp-fire was built at a safe distance from the house, for although the evening air was but slightly cool, a camp without a camp-fire would not be a camp. The party ranged themselves around it, Mrs. Archibald on a rug brought from the cabin, and her husband and Margery on the ground. Mr. Archibald lighted his pipe, the fire lighted the trees and the lake, and joy inexpressible lighted the heart of Margery.

“If I could smoke a pipe,” said she, “and get Mr. Matlack to come here and tell me how he killed a man, I should be perfectly happy.”

That night Mrs. Archibald lay awake on her straw mattress. Absolute darkness was about her, but through the open window she could see, over the tops of the trees on the other side of the lake, one little star.

“If I could get any comfort out of that little star,” thought the good lady, “I would do it; but I can’t do it, and there is nothing else to comfort me.”

On the other side of the room, on another straw mattress, she could hear her husband breathing steadily. Then, upon the bare boards of the floor, which were but a few inches below her little cot-bed, she thought she heard the patter of small feet. A squirrel, perhaps, or, horrible to think of, it might be a rat. She was sure rats would eat straw beds, and her first impulse was to wake Mr. Archibald; but she hesitated, he was sleeping so soundly. Still she listened, and now she became almost certain that what she heard was not the patter of small feet; it sounded more like something soft which was dragging itself over the floor—possibly a snake. This idea was simply awful, and she sat up in bed. Still she did not call Mr. Archibald, for should he suddenly spring on the floor, he would be in more danger from the snake than she was.

She listened and she listened, but she heard nothing more, and then her reason began to assure her that a snake’s movements on a bare floor would be absolutely noiseless; but in a moment all thoughts of serpents were driven from her head. Outside of the cabin she heard a sound that could be nothing less than the footsteps of some living creature—a wild beast, perhaps a panther. The door was shut and fastened, but the window was open. To call Mr. Archibald and tell him a wild beast was walking outside the house would be positively wicked. Half-awakened, he would probably rush out of the door to see what it was. What could she do? For an instant she thought of lighting a candle and standing it in the window. She knew that wild beasts were afraid of fire, and she did not believe that even a panther would dare jump over a lighted candle. But if she struck a match and got up, she would waken her husband; and, besides, if the wind, of which she could feel a puff every now and then, did not blow out the candle, it might blow it over and set fire to the cabin.

She heard the footsteps no more, and lay down again, but not to sleep. The wind seemed to be rising, and made a wild, unearthly sound as it surged through the trees which surrounded and imprisoned her, and shut her out from the world in which she was born and in which she ought to live. There was a far-away sound which came to her ears once, twice, thrice, and which might have been the call of some ghostly bird or the war-whoop of an Indian. At last she drew the covering over her head, determined that, so long as she could not see, she would not hear.

“A wedding-journey!” she said to herself, and the idea, coupled with the sense of her present grewsome and doleful condition, was so truly absurd and ridiculous that she could not restrain a melancholy laugh.

“What is the matter, my dear?” exclaimed Mr. Archibald, suddenly turning over in his bed. “Are you choking? Is the room too close? Shall I open the door?”