Mr. Kirwin

"Mr. Kirwin had shown me extreme kindness"
"His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion"
page 131


This may not be relevant to the plot line but I was really interested by the fact that Mr. Kirwin was so compassionate towards Victor. Everyone in the town thinks Victor killed Henry and keep giving him dirty looks and scorning him. Yet Mr. Kirwin gets him the best room and continuously checks on him. I really wanted to know why! Maybe it was revealed and I just missed it, but it seemed like Mr. Kirwin just genuinely cared about Victor even though they had just met. I think he truly believed the story Victor told about the creature. I kept waiting for him to tell some story about how he understood where Victor was coming from because he had been through something similar. Or a story that he saw the creature. Or he was somehow connected to Henry. Anything! But there was no connection or explanation which means that Mr. Kirwin represented the few characters in the book who just did something out of the kindness of their hearts. There was no motive or incentive or what's in it for me. I like that guy.