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.