In reality, I suppose, our party was in no sense singular.  In the conventional life at home they certainly seemed ordinary enough, but suddenly, as we passed through these gates of the wilderness, I saw them more sharply than before, with characters stripped of the atmosphere of men and cities.  A complete change of setting often furnishes a startlingly new view of people hitherto held for well-known; they present another facet of their personalities.  I seemed to see my own party almost as new people—­people I had not known properly hitherto, people who would drop all disguises and henceforth reveal themselves as they really were.  And each one seemed to say:  “Now you will see me as I am.  You will see me here in this primitive life of the wilderness without clothes.  All my masks and veils I have left behind in the abodes of men.  So, look out for surprises!”

The Reverend Timothy Maloney helped me to put up the tents, long practice making the process easy, and while he drove in pegs and tightened ropes, his coat off, his flannel collar flying open without a tie, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was cut out for the life of a pioneer rather than the church.  He was fifty years of age, muscular, blue-eyed and hearty, and he took his share of the work, and more, without shirking.  The way he handled the axe in cutting down saplings for the tent-poles was a delight to see, and his eye in judging the level was unfailing.

Bullied as a young man into a lucrative family living, he had in turn bullied his mind into some semblance of orthodox beliefs, doing the honours of the little country church with an energy that made one think of a coal-heaver tending china; and it was only in the past few years that he had resigned the living and taken instead to cramming young men for their examinations.  This suited him better.  It enabled him, too, to indulge his passion for spells of “wild life,” and to spend the summer months of most years under canvas in one part of the world or another where he could take his young men with him and combine “reading” with open air.

His wife usually accompanied him, and there was no doubt she enjoyed the trips, for she possessed, though in less degree, the same joy of the wilderness that was his own distinguishing characteristic.  The only difference was that while he regarded it as the real life, she regarded it as an interlude.  While he camped out with his heart and mind, she played at camping out with her clothes and body.  None the less, she made a splendid companion, and to watch her busy cooking dinner over the fire we had built among the stones was to understand that her heart was in the business for the moment and that she was happy even with the detail.