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 compel you or interfere with you. I
only express a hope. But one thing I do more than hope--I desire, if
you will honour my wishes, that, come what may, you are to keep your
British nationality, unless by special arrangement with and consent
of the Privy Council. Such arrangement to be formally made by my
friend, Edward Bingham Trent, or whomsoever he may appoint by deed or
will to act in the matter, and made in such a way that no act save
that alone of Parliament in all its estates, and endorsed by the
King, may or can prevail against it.
My last word to you is, Be bold and honest, and fear not. Most
things--even kingship--SOMEWHERE may now and again be won by the
sword. A brave heart and a strong arm may go far. But whatever is
so won cannot be held merely by the sword. Justice alone can hold in
the long run. Where men trust they will follow, and the rank and
file of people want to follow, not to lead. If it be your fortune to
lead, be bold. Be wary, if you will; exercise any other faculties
that may aid or guard. Shrink from nothing. Avoid nothing that is
honourable in itself. Take responsibility when such presents itself.
What others shrink from, accept. That is to be great in what world,
little or big, you move. Fear nothing, no matter of what kind danger
may be or whence it come. The only real way to meet danger is to
despise it--except with your brains. Meet it in the gate, not the
hall.
My kinsman, the name of my race and your own, worthily mingled in
your own person, now rests with you!
Letter from Rupert Sent Leger, 32 Bodmin Street, Victoria, S.W., to
Miss Janet MacKelpie, Croom, Ross-shire.
January 3, 1907.
MY DEAREST AUNT JANET,
You will, I know, be rejoiced to hear of the great good-fortune which
has come to me through the Will of Uncle Roger. Perhaps Sir Colin
will have written to you, as he is one of the executors, and there is
a bequest to you, so I must not spoil his pleasure of telling you of
that part himself. Unfortunately, I am not free to speak fully of my
own legacy yet, but I want you to know that at worst I am to receive
an amount many times more than I ever dreamt of possessing through
any possible stroke of fortune. So soon as I can leave London--
where, of course, I must remain until things are settled--I am coming
up to Croom to see you, and I hope I shall by then be able to let you
know so much that you will be able to guess at the extraordinary
change that has come to my circumstances. It is all like an
impossible dream: there is nothing like it in the "Arabian Nights."
However, the details must wait, I am pledged to secrecy for the
present. And you must be pledged too. You won't mind, dear, will
you? What I want to do at present is merely to tell you of my own
good-fortune, and that I shall be going presently to live for a while
at Vissarion. Won't you come with me, Aunt Janet? We shall talk
more of this when I come to Croom; but I want you to keep the subject
in your mind.
Your loving
RUPERT.
From Rupert Sent Leger's Journal.
January 4, 1907.
Things have been humming about me so fast that I have had hardly time
to think. But some of the things have been so important, and have so
changed my entire outlook on life, that it may be well to keep some
personal record of them. I may some day want to remember some
detail--perhaps the sequence of events, or something like that--and
it may be useful. It ought to be, if there is any justice in things,
for it will be an awful swot to write it when I have so many things
to think of now. Aunt Janet, I suppose, will like to keep it locked
up for me, as she does with all my journals and papers. That is one
good thing about Aunt Janet amongst many: she has no curiosity, or
else she has some other quality which keeps her from prying as other
women would. It would seem that she has not so much as opened the
cover of one of my journals ever in her life, and that she would not
without my permission. So this can in time go to her also.
I dined last night with Mr. Trent, by his special desire. The dinner
was in his own rooms. Dinner sent in from the hotel. He would not
have any waiters at all, but made them send in the dinner all at
once, and we helped ourselves. As we were quite alone, we could talk
freely, and we got over a lot of ground while we were dining. He
began to tell me about Uncle Roger. I was glad of that, for, of
course, I wanted to know all I could of him, and the fact was I had
seen very little of him. Of course, when I was a small kid he was
often in our house, for he was very fond of mother, and she of him.
But I fancy that a small boy was rather a nuisance to him. And then
I was at school, and he was away in the East. And then poor mother
died while he was living in the Blue Mountains, and I never saw him
again. When I wrote to him about Aunt Janet he answered me very
kindly but he was so very just in the matter that I got afraid of
him. And after that I ran away, and have been roaming ever since; so
there was never a chance of our meeting. But that letter of his has
opened my eyes. To think of him following me that way all over the
world, waiting to hold out a helping hand if I should want it, I only
wish I had known, or even suspected, the sort of man he was, and how
he cared for me, and I would sometimes have come back to see him, if
I had to come half round the world. Well, all I can do now is to
carry out his wishes; that will be my expiation for my neglect. He
knew what he wanted exactly, and I suppose I shall come in time to
know it all and understand it, too.
I was thinking something like this when Mr. Trent began to talk, so
that all he said fitted exactly into my own thought. The two men
were evidently great friends--I should have gathered that, anyhow,
from the Will--and the letters--so I was not surprised when Mr. Trent
told me that they had been to school together, Uncle Roger being a
senior when he was a junior; and had then and ever after shared each
other's confidence. Mr. Trent, I gathered, had from the very first
been in love with my mother, even when she was a little girl; but he
was poor and shy, and did not like to speak. When he had made up his
mind to do so, he found that she had by then met my father, and could
not help seeing that they loved each other. So he was silent. He
told me he had never said a word about it to anyone--not even to my
Uncle Roger, though he knew from one thing and another, though he
never spoke of it, that he would like it. I could not help seeing
that the dear old man regarded me in a sort of parental way--I have
heard of such romantic attachments being transferred to the later
generation. I was not displeased with it; on the contrary, I liked
him better for it. I love my mother so much--I always think of her
in the present--that I cannot think of her as dead. There is a tie
between anyone else who loved her and myself. I tried to let Mr.
Trent see that I liked him, and it pleased him so much that I could
see his liking for me growing greater. Before we parted he told me
that he was going to give up business. He must have understood how
disappointed I was--for how could I ever get along at all without
him?--for he said, as he laid a hand quite affectionately, I thought-
-on my shoulder:
"I shall have one client, though, whose business I always hope to
keep, and for whom I shall be always whilst I live glad to act--if he
will have me." I did not care to speak as I took his hand. He
squeezed mine, too, and said very earnestly:
"I served your uncle's interests to the very best of my ability for
nearly fifty years. He had full confidence in me, and I was proud of
his trust. I can honestly say, Rupert--you won't mind me using that
familiarity, will you?--that, though the interests which I guarded
were so vast that without abusing my trust I could often have used my
knowledge to my personal advantage, I never once, in little matters
or big, abused that trust--no, not even rubbed the bloom off it. And
now that he has remembered me in his Will so generously that I need
work no more, it will be a very genuine pleasure and pride to me to
carry out as well as I can the wishes that I partly knew, and now
realize more fully towards you, his nephew."
In the long chat which we had, and which lasted till midnight, he
told me many very interesting things about Uncle Roger. When, in the
course of conversation, he mentioned that the fortune Uncle Roger
left must be well over a hundred millions, I was so surprised that I
said out loud--I did not mean to ask a question:
"How on earth could a man beginning with nothing realize such a
gigantic fortune?"
"By all honest ways," he answered, "and his clever human insight. He
knew one half of the world, and so kept abreast of all public and
national movements that he knew the critical moment to advance money
required. He was always generous, and always on the side of freedom.
There are nations at this moment only now entering on the
consolidation of their liberty, who owe all to him, who knew when and
how to help. No wonder that in some lands they will drink to his
memory on great occasions as they used to drink his health."
"As you and I shall do now, sir!" I said, as I filled my glass and
stood up. We drank it in bumpers. We did not say a word, either of
us; but the old gentleman held out his hand, and I took it. And so,
holding hands, we drank in silence. It made me feel quite choky; and
I could see that he, too, was moved.
From E. B. Trent's Memoranda.
January 4, 1907.
I asked Mr. Rupert Sent Leger to dine with me at my office alone, as
I wished to have a chat with him. To-morrow Sir Colin and I will
have a formal meeting with him for the settlement of affairs, but I
thought it best to have an informal talk with him alone first, as I
wished to tell him certain matters which will make our meeting to-
morrow more productive of utility, as he can now have more full
understanding of the subjects which we have to discuss. Sir Colin is
all that can be in manhood, and I could wish no better colleague in
the executorship of this phenomenal Will; but he has not had the
privilege of a lifelong friendship with the testator as I have had.
And as Rupert Sent Leger had to learn intimate details regarding his
uncle, I could best make my confidences alone. To-morrow we shall
have plenty of formality. I was delighted with Rupert. He is just
what I could have wished his mother's boy to be--or a son of my own
to be, had I had the good-fortune to have been a father. But this is
not for me. I remember long, long ago reading a passage in Lamb's
Essays which hangs in my mind: "The children of Alice call Bartrum
father." Some of my old friends would laugh to see ME write this,
but these memoranda are for my eyes alone, and no one shall see them
till after my death, unless by my own permission. The boy takes some
qualities after his father; he has a daring that is disturbing to an
old dryasdust lawyer like me. But somehow I like him more than I
ever liked anyone--any man--in my life--more even than his uncle, my
old friend, Roger Melton; and Lord knows I had much cause to like
him. I have more than ever now. It was quite delightful to see the
way the young adventurer was touched by his uncle's thought of him.
He is a truly gallant fellow, but venturesome exploits have not
affected the goodness of heart. It is a pleasure to me to think that
Roger and Colin came together apropos of the boy's thoughtful
generosity towards Miss MacKelpie. The old soldier will be a good
friend to him, or I am much mistaken. With an old lawyer like me,
and an old soldier like him, and a real old gentlewoman like Miss
MacKelpie, who loves the very ground he walks on, to look after him,
together with all his own fine qualities and his marvellous
experience of the world, and the gigantic wealth that will surely be
his, that young man will go far.
