第18章 THE WHITE CANOE(1)

While the two boats were racing,other boats with lookers-on in them were rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course.The scene on the water was a gay one,for the young people in the boats were,many of them,acquainted with each other.There was a good deal of lively talk until the race became too exciting.Then many fell silent,until,as the boats neared the line,and still more as they crossed it,the shouts burst forth which showed how a cramp of attention finds its natural relief in a fit of convulsive exclamation.

But far away,on the other side of the lake,a birchbark canoe was to be seen,in which sat a young man,who paddled it skillfully and swiftly.It was evident enough that he was watching the race intently,but the spectators could see little more than that.One of them,however,who sat upon the stand,had a powerful spy-glass,and could distinguish his motions very minutely and exactly.It was seen by this curious observer that the young man had an opera-glass with him,which he used a good deal at intervals.The spectator thought he kept it directed to the girls'boat,chiefly,if not exclusively.

He thought also that the opera-glass was more particularly pointed towards the bow of the boat,and came to the natural conclusion that the bow oar,Miss Euthymia Tower,captain of the Atalantas,"The Wonder"of the Corinna Institute,was the attraction which determined the direction of the instrument.

"Who is that in the canoe over there?"asked the owner of the spy-glass.

"That's just what we should like to know,"answered the old landlord's wife."He and his man boarded with us when they first came,but we could never find out anything about him only just his name and his ways of living.His name is Kirkwood,Maurice Kirkwood,Esq.,it used to come on his letters.As for his ways of living,he was the solitariest human being that I ever came across.His man carried his meals up to him.He used to stay in his room pretty much all day,but at night he would be off,walking,or riding on horseback,or paddling about in the lake,sometimes till nigh morning.There's something very strange about that Mr.Kirkwood.

But there don't seem to be any harm in him.Only nobody can guess what his business is.They got up a story about him at one time.

What do you think?They said he was a counterfeiter!And so they went one night to his room,when he was out,and that man of his was away too,and they carried keys,and opened pretty much everything;and they found--well,they found just nothing at all except writings and letters,--letters from places in America and in England,and some with Italian postmarks:that was all.Since that time the sheriff and his folks have let him alone and minded their own business.He was a gentleman,--anybody ought to have known that;and anybody that knew about his nice ways of living and behaving,and knew the kind of wear he had for his underclothing,might have known it.I could have told those officers that they had better not bother him.I know the ways of real gentlemen and real ladies,and I know those fellows in store clothes that look a little too fine,--outside.Wait till washing-day comes!"The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity,and they were not wholly unworthy of consideration;they were quite as much to be relied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist,who sent his accomplice on before him to study out the principal personages in the village,and in the light of these revelations interpreted the bumps,with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim,or any other authorities.

Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search among his papers and effects,the gossips of the village had constructed several distinct histories for the mysterious stranger.

He was an agent of a great publishing house;a leading contributor to several important periodicals;the author of that anonymously published novel which had made so much talk;the poet of a large clothing establishment;a spy of the Italian,some said the Russian,some said the British,Government;a proscribed refugee from some country where he had been plotting;a school-master without a school,a minister without a pulpit,an actor without an engagement;in short,there was no end to the perfectly senseless stories that were told about him,from that which made him out an escaped convict to the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric heir to a great English title and estate.

The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion.