The Lady of the Shroud - Bram Stoker (phonics reader txt) 📗

prevent that or

interfere with it, for I would keep it as my secret in the very holy

of holies of my heart, where had been for thirty years the image of a

sweet little child—your mother. My boy, when in your future life

you shall have happiness and honour and power, I hope you will

sometimes give a thought to the lonely old man whose later years your

very existence seemed to brighten.

 

The thought of your mother recalled me to my duty. I had undertaken

for her a sacred task: to carry out her wishes regarding her son. I

knew how she would have acted. It might—would—have been to her a

struggle of inclination and duty; and duty would have won. And so I

carried out my duty, though I tell you it was a harsh and bitter task

to me at the time. But I may tell you that I have since been glad

when I think of the result. I tried, as you may perhaps remember, to

carry out your wishes in another way, but your letter put the

difficulty of doing so so clearly before me that I had to give it up.

And let me tell you that that letter endeared you to me more than

ever.

 

I need not tell you that thenceforth I followed your life very

closely. When you ran away to sea, I used in secret every part of

the mechanism of commerce to find out what had become of you. Then,

until you had reached your majority, I had a constant watch kept upon

you—not to interfere with you in any way, but so that I might be

able to find you should need arise. When in due course I heard of

your first act on coming of age I was satisfied. I had to know of

the carrying out of your original intention towards Janet Mac Kelpie,

for the securities had to be transferred.

 

From that time on I watched—of course through other eyes—your chief

doings. It would have been a pleasure to me to have been able to

help in carrying out any hope or ambition of yours, but I realized

that in the years intervening between your coming of age and the

present moment you were fulfilling your ideas and ambitions in your

own way, and, as I shall try to explain to you presently, my

ambitions also. You were of so adventurous a nature that even my own

widely-spread machinery of acquiring information—what I may call my

private “intelligence department”—was inadequate. My machinery was

fairly adequate for the East—in great part, at all events. But you

went North and South, and West also, and, in addition, you essayed

realms where commerce and purely real affairs have no foothold—

worlds of thought, of spiritual import, of psychic phenomena—

speaking generally, of mysteries. As now and again I was baffled in

my inquiries, I had to enlarge my mechanism, and to this end started-

-not in my own name, of course—some new magazines devoted to certain

branches of inquiry and adventure. Should you ever care to know more

of these things, Mr. Trent, in whose name the stock is left, will be

delighted to give you all details. Indeed, these stocks, like all

else I have, shall be yours when the time comes, if you care to ask

for them. By means of The Journal of Adventure, The Magazine of

Mystery, Occultism, Balloon and Aeroplane, The Submarine, Jungle and

Pampas, The Ghost World, The Explorer, Forest and Island, Ocean and

Creek, I was often kept informed when I should otherwise have been

ignorant of your whereabouts and designs. For instance, when you had

disappeared into the Forest of the Incas, I got the first whisper of

your strange adventures and discoveries in the buried cities of

Eudori from a correspondent of The Journal of Adventure long before

the details given in The Times of the rock-temple of the primeval

savages, where only remained the little dragon serpents, whose giant

ancestors were rudely sculptured on the sacrificial altar. I well

remember how I thrilled at even that meagre account of your going in

alone into that veritable hell. It was from Occultism that I learned

how you had made a stay alone in the haunted catacombs of Elora, in

the far recesses of the Himalayas, and of the fearful experiences

which, when you came out shuddering and ghastly, overcame to almost

epileptic fear those who had banded themselves together to go as far

as the rock-cut approach to the hidden temple.

 

All such things I read with rejoicing. You were shaping yourself for

a wider and loftier adventure, which would crown more worthily your

matured manhood. When I read of you in a description of Mihask, in

Madagascar, and the devil-worship there rarely held, I felt I had

only to wait for your home-coming in order to broach the enterprise I

had so long contemplated. This was what I read:

 

“He is a man to whom no adventure is too wild or too daring. His

reckless bravery is a byword amongst many savage peoples and amongst

many others not savages, whose fears are not of material things, but

of the world of mysteries in and beyond the grave. He dares not only

wild animals and savage men; but has tackled African magic and Indian

mysticism. The Psychical Research Society has long exploited his

deeds of valiance, and looked upon him as perhaps their most trusted

agent or source of discovery. He is in the very prime of life, of

almost giant stature and strength, trained to the use of all arms of

all countries, inured to every kind of hardship, subtle-minded and

resourceful, understanding human nature from its elemental form up.

To say that he is fearless would be inadequate. In a word, he is a

man whose strength and daring fit him for any enterprise of any kind.

He would dare and do anything in the world or out of it, on the earth

or under it, in the sea or—in the air, fearing nothing material or

unseen, not man or ghost, nor God nor Devil.”

 

If you ever care to think of it, I carried that cutting in my pocket-book from that hour I read it till now.

 

Remember, again, I say, that I never interfered in the slightest way

in any of your adventures. I wanted you to “dree your own weird,” as

the Scotch say; and I wanted to know of it—that was all. Now, as I

hold you fully equipped for greater enterprise, I want to set your

feet on the road and to provide you with the most potent weapon—

beyond personal qualities—for the winning of great honour—a gain,

my dear nephew, which, I am right sure, does and will appeal to you

as it has ever done to me. I have worked for it for more than fifty

years; but now that the time has come when the torch is slipping from

my old hands, I look to you, my dearest kinsman, to lift it and carry

it on.

 

The little nation of the Blue Mountains has from the first appealed

to me. It is poor and proud and brave. Its people are well worth

winning, and I would advise you to throw in your lot with them. You

may find them hard to win, for when peoples, like individuals, are

poor and proud, these qualities are apt to react on each other to an

endless degree. These men are untamable, and no one can ever succeed

with them unless he is with them in all-in-all, and is a leader

recognized. But if you can win them they are loyal to death. If you

are ambitious—and I know you are—there may be a field for you in

such a country. With your qualifications, fortified by the fortune

which I am happy enough to be able to leave you, you may dare much

and go far. Should I be alive when you return from your exploration

in Northern South America, I may have the happiness of helping you to

this or any other ambition, and I shall deem it a privilege to share

it with you; but time is going on. I am in my seventy-second year .

. . the years of man are three-score and ten—I suppose you

understand; I do … Let me point out this: For ambitious projects

the great nationalities are impossible to a stranger—and in our own

we are limited by loyalty (and common-sense). It is only in a small

nation that great ambitions can be achieved. If you share my own

views and wishes, the Blue .Mountains is your ground. I hoped at one

time that I might yet become a Voivode—even a great one. But age

has dulled my personal ambitions as it has cramped my powers. I no

longer dream of such honour for myself, though I do look on it as a

possibility for you if you care for it. Through my Will you will

have a great position and a great estate, and though you may have to

yield up the latter in accordance with my wish, as already expressed

in this letter, the very doing so will give you an even greater hold

than this possession in the hearts of the mountaineers, should they

ever come to know it. Should it be that at the time you inherit from

me the Voivode Vissarion should not be alive, it may serve or aid you

to know that in such case you would be absolved from any conditions

of mine, though I trust you would in that, as in all other matters,

hold obligation enforced by your own honour as to my wishes.

Therefore the matter stands thus: If Vissarion lives, you will

relinquish the estates. Should such not be the case, you will act as

you believe that I would wish you to. In either case the

mountaineers should not know from you in any way of the secret

contracts between Vissarion and myself. Enlightenment of the many

should (if ever) come from others than yourself. And unless such

take place, you would leave the estates without any quid pro quo

whatever. This you need not mind, for the fortune you will inherit

will leave you free and able to purchase other estates in the Blue

Mountains or elsewhere that you may select in the world.

 

If others attack, attack them, and quicker and harder than they can,

if such be a possibility. Should it ever be that you inherit the

Castle of Vissarion on the Spear of Ivan, remember that I had it

secretly fortified and armed against attack. There are not only

massive grilles, but doors of chilled bronze where such be needed.

My adherent Rooke, who has faithfully served me for nearly forty

years, and has gone on my behalf on many perilous expeditions, will,

I trust, serve you in the same way. Treat him well for my sake, if

not for your own. I have left him provision for a life of ease; but

he would rather take a part in dangerous enterprises. He is silent

as the grave and as bold as a lion. He knows every detail of the

fortification and of the secret means of defence. A word in your

ear—he was once a pirate. He was then in his extreme youth, and

long since changed his ways in this respect; but from this fact you

can understand his nature. You will find him useful should occasion

ever arise. Should you accept the conditions of my letter, you are

to make the Blue Mountains—in part, at least—your home, living

there a part of the year, if only for a week, as in England men of

many estates share the time amongst them. To this you are not bound,

and no one shall have power to