Part 9

Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of the students of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it was written on the envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster who found fault with Miss “Lulu's” designation would probably have quarrelled with this address, if it had come under his eye. “Frank” is a very pretty, pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that many persons use it in common conversation all their days when speaking of a friend. Were they really christened by that name, any of these numerous Franks? Perhaps they were, and if so there is nothing to be said. But if not, was the baptismal name Francis or Franklin? The mind is apt to fasten in a very perverse and unpleasant way upon this question, which too often there is no possible way of settling. One might hope, if he outlived the bearer of the appellation, to get at the fact; but since even gravestones have learned to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in their solemn record, the generation which docks its Christian names in such an un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians and antiquarians of a coming generation to settle what was the real name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is legible on a white marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain burial-ground in a town in Essex County, Massachusetts!

But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. Frank Mayfield.

“DEAR FRANK,--Hooray! Hurrah! Rah!

“I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It happened by a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near relieving you of the duty of replying to this letter. I was out in my little boat, which carries a sail too big for her, as I know and ought to have remembered. One of those fitful flaws of wind to which the lake is so liable struck the sail suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tangled in the sheet somehow, and I could not get free. I had hard work to keep my head above water, and I struggled desperately to escape from my toils; for if the boat were to go down I should be dragged down with her. I thought of a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got a lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the rest of them have to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me in the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat tired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the landing where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything odd about his manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be a native of one of our Northern States,--perhaps a New Englander. He has lived abroad during some parts of his life. He is not an artist, as it was at one time thought he might be. He is a good-looking fellow, well developed, manly in appearance, with nothing to excite special remark unless it be a certain look of anxiety or apprehension which comes over him from time to time. You remember our old friend Squire B., whose companion was killed by lightning when he was standing close to him. You know the look he had whenever anything like a thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, I should say there was a look like that came over this Maurice Kirkwood's face every now and then. I noticed that he looked round once or twice as if to see whether some object or other was in sight. There was a little rustling in the grass as if of footsteps, and this look came over his features. A rabbit ran by us, and I watched to see if he showed any sign of that antipathy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be pleased watching the creature.

“If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I think he is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a 'crank' exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we spoke of,--the lake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked him to come over and take a look at the college. He did n't promise, but I should not be surprised if I should get him over there some day. I asked him why he did n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He did n't give any reason, but he shook his head in a very peculiar way, as much as to say that it was impossible.

“On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of dread of human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of religion used to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that Protestantism does not make special provision for all the freaks of individual character! If we had a little more faith and a few more caverns, or convenient places for making them, we should have hermits in these holes as thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like to know if you never had the feeling,

“'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!'

“I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, 'Certainly,

“'With one fair spirit for my minister;'”

“but I mean alone,--all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should like to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong as lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and a disgrace to the University--but never mind.) I often feel as if I should like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,--yes, and have it soaped from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down at the bores and the duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' association. (Jerry--still looking over says there is an absurd contradiction in the idea.)

“What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is!

“How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?”

The reader will not get much information out of this lively young fellow's letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know that the mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor talk like a crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and address, helpful when occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so far as yet appeared, to prevent his being an acceptable member of society.

Of course the people in the village could never be contented without learning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. All the city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier had absconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president was missing, some of the old stories would wake up and get a fresh currency, until some new circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. Unconscious of all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood lived on in his inoffensive and unexplained solitude, and seemed likely to remain an unsolved enigma. The “Sachem” of the boating girls became the “Sphinx” of the village ramblers, and it was agreed on all hands that Egypt did not hold any hieroglyphics harder to make out than the meaning of this young man's odd way of living.

V. THE ENIGMA STUDIED.

It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a young man, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if made for companionship, should keep himself apart from all the world around him in a place where there was a general feeling of good neighborhood and a pleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library was a central point which brought people together. The Pansophian Society did a great deal to make them acquainted with each other for many of the meetings were open to outside visitors, and the subjects discussed in the meetings furnished the material for conversation in their intervals. A card of invitation had been sent by the Secretary to Maurice, in answer to which Paolo carried back a polite note of regret. The paper had a narrow rim of black, implying apparently some loss of relative or friend, but not any very recent and crushing bereavement. This refusal to come to the meetings of the society was only what was expected. It was proper to ask him, but his declining the invitation showed that he did not wish for attentions or courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bring him out of his shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about him at present.

In this state of things it was natural that all which had been previously gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of him should be worked over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the old refuse heaps are looked over for what may still be found in them. The landlord of the Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding-house, talked about Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one time or another. He had not much to say, but he added a fact or two.

The young gentleman was good pay,--so they all said. Sometimes he paid in gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He trusted his man, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew something about horses; he showed that by the way he handled that colt,--the one that threw the hostler and broke his collar-bone. “Mr. Paul come down to the stable. 'Let me see that cult you all 'fraid of,' says he. 'My master, he ride any hoss,' says Paul. 'You saddle him,' says he; and so they did, and Paul, he led that colt--the kickinest and ugliest young beast you ever see in your life--up to the place where his master, as he calls him, and he lives. What does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of long spurs and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tail up, heels flying, standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and at last going it full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got about enough of it. That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as quiet as a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good money, and knows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he is n't a whole one,--and most likely he is a whole one.”

So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already given her favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added something to her description as a sequel to her husband's remarks.

“I call him,” she said, “about as likely a young gentleman as ever I clapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a young man of his age; if he was my son, I should like to see him a little more fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and thirty or forty pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, M'randy? Just as blue as succory flowers. I do like those light-complected young fellows, with their fresh cheeks and their curly hair; somehow, curly hair doos set off anybody's face. He is n't any foreigner, for all that he talks Italian with that Mr. Paul that's his help. He looks just like our kind of folks, the college kind, that's brought up among books, and is handling 'em, and reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all their lives. All that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what I should think he was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought to see him go over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's any harm in that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I suppose he likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more for walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos for company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to know?”

The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging people.

“I never see him but two or three times,” Miranda said. “I should like to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when he was eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jaws get a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember that chap the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven year ago it was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman from the City he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, I don't believe you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and that ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed him anything I looked closeter and closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them cheeks, says I to myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in your shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's nothin' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes' step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap.' I knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes up to the chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. We've had the hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your company to come and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out a couple of handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, an' off they goes together! I know one thing about that young gentleman, anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' than he is. I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends word to me by that Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that the Pope o' Rome don't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent up to me yesterday,' says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' Rome except that he's a Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, whether it's a man or a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' maccaroni, I ain't afeard of their shefs, as they call 'em,--them he-cooks that can't serve up a cold potater without callin' it by some name nobody can say after 'em. But this gentleman knows good cookin', and that's as good a sign of a gentleman as I want to tell 'em by.”

VI. STILL AT FAULT.

The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was not a very inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhat dilapidated and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in the part which Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing-boxes in the cellar, with broken chairs, broken china, and other household wrecks. A cracked mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contents of which were airing themselves through wide rips and rents. A lame clothes-horse was saddled with an old rug fringed with a ragged border, out of which all the colors had been completely trodden. No woman would have gone into a house in such a condition. But the young man did not trouble himself much about such matters, and was satisfied when the rooms which were to be occupied by himself and his servant were made decent and tolerably comfortable. During the fine season all this was not of much consequence, and if Maurice made up his mind to stay through the winter he would have his choice among many more eligible places.

The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and the young ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of the year were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had now returned to their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both glad to rest after the long final examinations and the exercises of the closing day, in which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. It was a pleasant life they led in the village, which was lively enough at this season. Walking, riding, driving, boating, visits to the Library, meetings of the Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics made the time pass very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring influences. The Terror's large eyes did not wear the dull, glazed look by which they had too often betrayed the after effects of over-excitement of the strong and active brain behind them. The Wonder gained a fresher bloom, and looked full enough of life to radiate vitality into a statue of ice. They had a boat of their own, in which they passed many delightful hours on the lake, rowing, drifting, reading, telling of what had been, dreaming of what might be.

The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar character, as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge, sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, their title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers who call for particular works, the value of different editions, and a good deal besides. Their minds catch up hints from all manner of works on all kinds of subjects. They will give a visitor a fact and a reference which they are surprised to find they remember and which the visitor might have hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who has grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do not like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to have their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books of a great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, though they are only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as it were, outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarian was getting a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had a young lady for his assistant, who was never so happy as when she could find the work any visitor wanted and put it in his hands,--or her hands, for there were more readers among the wives and--daughters, and especially among the aunts, than there were among their male relatives. The old Librarian knew the books, but the books seemed to know the young assistant; so it looked, at least, to the impatient young people who wanted their services.

Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,--a great many, according to Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well-filled shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master frequently sent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat enlarged his notions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he was certain, and some of his white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were more splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the Library.

There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that Maurice was in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record was carefully searched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. The list proved to be a long and varied one. It would imply a considerable knowledge of modern languages and of the classics; a liking for mathematics and physics, especially all that related to electricity and magnetism; a fancy for the occult sciences, if there is any propriety in coupling these words; and a whim for odd and obsolete literature, like the Parthenologia of Fortunius Licetus, the quaint treatise 'De Sternutatione,' books about alchemy, and witchcraft, apparitions, and modern works relating to Spiritualism. With these were the titles of novels and now and then of books of poems; but it may be taken for granted that his own shelves held the works he was most frequently in the habit of reading or consulting. Not much was to be made out of this beyond the fact of wide scholarship,--more or less deep it might be, but at any rate implying no small mental activity; for he appeared to read very rapidly, at any rate exchanged the books he had taken out for new ones very frequently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of letters. But so wide-reading a man of letters must have an object, a literary purpose in all probability. Why should not he be writing a novel? Not a novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person to report the talk and manners of a world which he has nothing to do with. Novelists and lawyers understand the art of “cramming” better than any other persons in the world. Why should not this young man be working up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a background for some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed from science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his odd and miscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, or possibly he was only reading for amusement. Who could say?