And he did it

well. The pan of water was never without a fish, cleaned and scaled,

ready to fry for whoever was hungry; the nightly fire never died down

for lack of material to throw on without going farther afield to search.

And Timothy, once reverend, caught the fish and

chopped down the trees. He also assumed responsibility for the

condition of the boat, and did it so thoroughly that nothing in the

little cutter was ever found wanting. And when, for any reason, his

presence was in demand, the first place to look for him was—in the

boat, and there, too, he was usually found, tinkering away with sheets,

sails, or rudder and singing as he tinkered.

“Nor was the “reading” neglected; for most mornings

there came a sound of droning voices form the white tent by the

raspberry bushes, which signified that Sangree, the tutor, and whatever

other man chanced to be in the party at the time, were hard at it with

history or the classics.

And while Mrs. Maloney, also by natural selection,

took charge of the larder and the kitchen, the mending and general

supervision of the rough comforts, she also made herself peculiarly

mistress of the megaphone which summoned to meals and carried her voice

easily from one end of the island to the other; and in her hours of

leisure she daubed the surrounding scenery on to a sketching block with

all the honesty and devotion of her determined but unreceptive soul.

Joan, meanwhile, Joan, elusive creature of the

wilds, became I know not exactly what. She did plenty of work in the

Camp, yet seemed to have no very precise duties. She was everywhere and

anywhere. Sometimes she slept in her tent, sometimes under the stars

with a blanket. She knew every inch of the island and kept turning up

in places where she was least expected—for ever wandering about,

reading her books in sheltered corners, making little fires on sunless

days to “worship by to the gods,” as she put it, ever finding new pools

to dive and bathe in, and swimming day and night in the warm and

waveless lagoon like a fish in a huge tank. She went bare-legged and

bare-footed, with her hair down and her skirts caught up to the knees,

and if ever a human being turned into a jolly savage within the compass

of a single week, Joan Maloney was certainly that human being. She ran

wild.

So completely, too, was she possessed by the strong

spirit of the place that the little human fear she had yielded to so

strangely on our arrival seemed to have been utterly dispossessed. As I

hoped and expected, she made no reference to our conversation of the

first evening. Sangree bothered her with no special attentions, and

after all they were very little together. His behaviour was perfect in

that respect, and I, for my part, hardly gave the matter another

thought. Joan was ever a prey to vivid fancies of one kind or another,

and this was one of them. Mercifully for the happiness of all

concerned, it had melted away before the spirit of busy, active life

and deep content that reigned over the island. Every one was intensely

alive, and peace was upon all.

Meanwhile the effect of the camp-life began to tell.

Always a searching test of character, its results, sooner or later, are

infallible, for it acts upon the soul as swiftly and surely as the hypo

bath upon the negative of a photograph. A readjustment of the personal

forces takes place quickly; some parts of the personality go to sleep,

others wake up: but the first sweeping change that the primitive life

brings about is that the artificial portions of the character shed

themselves one after another like dead skins. Attitudes and poses that

seemed genuine in the city drop away. The mind, like the body, grows

quickly hard, simple, un-complex. And in a camp as primitive and close

to nature as ours was, these effects became speedily visible.

Some folk, of course, who talk glibly about the

simple life when it is safely out of reach, betray themselves in camp

by for ever peering about for the artificial excitements of

civilisation which they miss. Some get bored at once; some grow

slovenly; some reveal the animal in most unexpected fashion; and some,

the select few, find themselves in very short order and are happy.

And, in our little party, we could flatter ourselves

that we all belonged to the last category, so far as the general effect

was concerned. Only there were certain other changes as well, varying

with each individual, and all interesting to note.

It was only after the first week or two that these

changes became marked, although this is the proper place, I think, to

speak of them. For, having myself no other duty than to enjoy a

well-earned holiday, I used to load my canoe with blankets and

provisions and journey forth on exploration trips among the islands of

several days together; and it was on my return from the first of

these—when I rediscovered the party, so to speak—that these changes

first presented themselves vividly to me, and in one particular

instance produced a rather curious impression.

In a word, then, while every one had grown wilder,

naturally wilder, Sangree, it seemed to me, had grown much wilder, and

what I can only call unnaturally wilder. He made me think of a savage.

To begin with, he had changed immensely in mere

physical appearance, and the full brown cheeks, the brighter eyes of

absolute health, and the general air of vigour and robustness that had

come to replace his customary lassitude and timidity, had worked such

an improvement that I hardly knew him for the same man. His voice, too,

was deeper and his manner bespoke for the first time a greater measure

of confidence in himself. He now had some claims to be called

nice-looking, or at least to a certain air of virility that would not

lessen his value in the eyes of the opposite sex.

All this, of course, was natural enough, and most

welcome. But, altogether apart from this physical change, which no

doubt had also been going forward in the rest of us, there was a subtle

note in his personality that came to me with a degree of surprise that

almost amounted to shock.

And two things—as he came down to welcome me and

pull up the canoe—leaped up in my mind unbidden, as though connected

in some way I could not at the moment divine—first, the curious

judgment formed of him by Joan; and secondly, that fugitive expression

I had caught in his face while Maloney was offering up his strange

prayer for special protection from Heaven.

The delicacy of manner and feature—to call it by no

milder term— which had always been a distinguishing characteristic of

the man, had been replaced by something far more vigorous and decided,

that yet utterly eluded analysis. The change which impressed me so

oddly was not easy to name.