Camping -- Fiction; Manners and customs -- Fiction
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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