Castle Nowhere | Page 3

voluminous way of making remarks,' replied the Spirit,
'and I do not pretend to stand up for them all. But one thing is certain;
whatever he may have wished, in a musical way, regarding
wildernesses and mountain-tops, when it came to the fact he did not go.
And why? Because he--'
'Had no wings,' said Waring, closing the discussion with a mighty yawn.
'I say, Spirit, take yourself off. Something is coming ashore, and were it
old Nick in person I should be glad to see him and shake his clawed
hand.'
As he spoke out of the fog and into the glare of the fire shot a phantom
skiff, beaching itself straight and swift at his feet, and so suddenly that

he had to withdraw them like a flash to avoid the crunch of the sharp
bows across the sand. 'Always let the other man speak first,' he thought;
'this boomerang of a boat has a shape in it, I see.'
The shape rose, and, leaning on its oar, gazed at the camp and its owner
in silence. It seemed to be an old man, thin and bent, with bare arms,
and a yellow handkerchief bound around its head, drawn down almost
to the eyebrows, which, singularly bushy and prominent, shaded the
deep-set eyes, and hid their expression.
'But supposing he won't, don't stifle yourself,' continued Waring; then
aloud, 'Well, old gentleman, where do you come from?'
'Nowhere.'
'And where are you going?'
'Back there.'
'Couldn't you take me with you? I have been trying all my life to go
nowhere, but never could learn the way: do what I would, I always
found myself going in the opposite direction, namely, somewhere.'
To this the shape replied nothing, but gazed on.
'Do the nobodies reside in Nowhere, I wonder,' pursued the smoker;
'because if they do, I am afraid I shall meet all my friends and relatives.
What a pity the somebodies could not reside there! But perhaps they do;
cynics would say so.'
But at this stage the shape waved its oar impatiently and demanded,
'Who are you?'
'Well I do not exactly know. Once I supposed I was Jarvis Waring, but
the wilderness has routed that prejudice. We can be anybody we please;
it is only a question of force or will; and my latest character has been
William Shakespeare. I have been trying to find out whether I wrote my
own plays. Stay to supper and take the other side; it is long since I have
had an argument with flesh and blood. And you are that,--aren't you?'
But the shape frowned until it seemed all eyebrow. 'Young man,' it said,
'how came you here? By water?'
'No; by land.'
'Alongshore?'
'No; through the woods.'
'Nobody ever comes through the woods.'
'Agreed; but I am somebody.'
'Do you mean that you have come across from Lake Superior on foot?'

'I landed on the shore of Lake Superior a month or two ago, and struck
inland the same day; where I am now I neither know nor want to know.'
'Very well,' said the shape,--'very well.' But it scowled more gently.
'You have no boat?'
'No.'
'Do you start on to-morrow?'
'Probably; by that time the waves and "the sessions of sweet silent
thought" will have driven me distracted between them.'
'I will stay to supper, I think,' said the shape, unbending still farther,
and stepping out of the skiff.
'Deeds before words then,' replied Waring, starting back towards a tree
where his game-bag and knapsack were standing. When he returned the
skiff had disappeared; but the shape was warming its moccassined feet
in a very human sort of way. They cooked and eat with the appetites of
the wilderness, and grew sociable after a fashion. The shape's name
was Fog, Amos Fog, or old Fog, a fisherman and a hunter among the
islands farther to the south; he had come inshore to see what that fire
meant, no person having camped there in fifteen long years.
'You have been here all that time, then?'
'Off and on, off and on; I live a wandering life,' replied old Fog; and
then, with the large curiosity that solitude begets, he turned the
conversation back towards the other and his story.
The other, not unwilling to tell his adventures, began readily; and the
old man listened, smoking meanwhile a second pipe produced from the
compact stores in the knapsack. In the web of encounters and escapes,
he placed his little questions now and then; no, Waring had no plan for
exploring the region, no intention of settling there, was merely idling
away a summer in the wilderness and would then go back to
civilization never to return, at least, not that way; might go west across
the plains, but that would