第20章 What is a country village without its mysterious p

Few are now living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man who was the mystery of our great university town "sixty years since,"--long enough ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative,as Waverley may remind us.The writer of this narrative remembers him well,and is not sure that he has not told the strange story in some form or other to the last generation,or to the one before the last.No matter:if he has told it they have forgotten it,--that is,if they have ever read it;and whether they have or have not,the story is singular enough to justify running the risk of repetition.

This young man,with a curious name of Scandinavian origin,appeared unheralded in the town,as it was then,of Cantabridge.He wanted employment,and soon found it in the shape of manual labor,which he undertook and performed cheerfully.But his whole appearance showed plainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very different nature,if,in deed,he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for his living.His aspect was that of one of gentle birth.His hands were not those of a laborer,and his features were delicate and refined,as well as of remarkable beauty.Who he was,where he came from,why he had come to Cantabridge,was never clearly explained.

He was alone,without friends,except among the acquaintances he had made in his new residence.If he had any correspondents,they were not known to the neighborhood where he was living.But if he had neither friends nor correspondents,there was some reason for believing that he had enemies.Strange circumstances occurred which connected themselves with him in an ominous and unaccountable way.Athreatening letter was slipped under the door of a house where he was visiting.He had a sudden attack of illness,which was thought to look very much like the effect of poison.At one time he disappeared,and was found wandering,bewildered,in a town many miles from that where he was residing.When questioned how he came there;he told a coherent story that he had been got,under some pretext,or in some not incredible way,into a boat,from which,at a certain landing-place,he had escaped and fled for his life,which he believed was in danger from his kidnappers.

Whoever his enemies may have been,--if they really existed,--he did not fall a victim to their plots,so far as known to or remembered by this witness.

Various interpretations were put upon his story.Conjectures were as abundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser.That he was of good family seemed probable;that he was of distinguished birth,not impossible;that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a greatly coveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was a favorite speculation of some of the more romantic young persons.

There was no dramatic ending to this story,--at least none is remembered by the present writer.

"He left a name,"like the royal Swede,of whose lineage he may have been for aught that the village people knew,but not a name at which anybody "grew pale;"for he had swindled no one,and broken no woman's heart with false vows.Possibly some withered cheeks may flush faintly as they recall the handsome young man who came before the Cantabridge maidens fully equipped for a hero of romance when the century was in its first quarter.

The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidents attending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who had made his appearance at Arrowhead Village.

It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for the young man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an antipathy.For what do we understand by that word?When a young lady screams at the sight of a spider,we accept her explanation that she has a natural antipathy to the creature.When a person expresses a repugnance to some wholesome article of food,agreeable to most people,we are satisfied if he gives the same reason.And so of various odors,which are pleasing to some persons and repulsive to others.We do not pretend to go behind the fact.It is an individual,and it may be a family,peculiarity.Even between different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislike as well as an elective affinity.We are not bound to give a reason why Dr.Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorily challenges a juryman is bound to say why he does it;it is enough that he "does not like his looks."There was nothing strange,then,that Maurice Kirkwood should have his special antipathy;a great many other people have odd likes and dislikes.But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should be alleged as the reason for his singular mode of life.All sorts of explanations were suggested,not one of them in the least satisfactory,but serving to keep the curiosity of inquirers active until they were superseded by a new theory.One story was that Maurice had a great fear of dogs.It grew at last to a connected narrative,in which a fright in childhood from a rabid mongrel was said to have given him such a sensitiveness to the near presence of dogs that he was liable to convulsions if one came close to him.

This hypothesis had some plausibility.No other creature would be so likely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it.Dogs are very apt to make the acquaintance of strangers,in a free and easy way.

They are met with everywhere,--in one's daily walk,at the thresholds of the doors one enters,in the gentleman's library,on the rug of my lady's sitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage.It is true that there are few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this "friend of man."But what if this so-called antipathy were only a fear,a terror,which borrowed the less unmanly name?It was a fair question,if,indeed,the curiosity of the public had a right to ask any questions at all about a harmless individual who gave no offence,and seemed entitled to the right of choosing his way of living to suit himself,without being submitted to espionage.