by Bram Stoker
You must come and see it! I will take you all over it; that is, over all I can, for there are some parts of it shut off and locked up.”
“When may I go?” I asked.
“Well, I had thought,” she answered, “that it would be very nice if you were to get your wheel and ride over with me to-day.”
“Count me in every time! By the way what is the name of the place?”
“Crom Castle. Crom is the name of the little village, but it is a couple of miles away.” I paused a while thinking before I spoke. Then with my mind made up I said:
“Before we leave here I want to speak of something which, however unimportant you may think it, makes me anxious. You will let me at the beginning beg, won’t you, that you do not ask me who my informant is, or not to tell you anything except what I think advisable.” Her face grew grave as she said:
“You frighten me! But Archie, dear, I trust you. I trust you; and you may speak plainly. I shall understand.”
CHAPTER XX
COMRADESHIP
“I WANT you to promise me that you will not hide yourself where I cannot find you. I have grave reason for the request. Also, I want you, if you will, to let some others know where you are.” At first there was instinctive defiance in her mouth and nostrils. Then her brows wrinkled in thought; the sequence was an index to character which I could not but notice. However the war was not long; reason, whatever was the outcome of its dominance, triumphed over impulse. I thought I could understand the logical process which led to her spoken conclusion:
“You want to report me to ‘ Uncle Sam “That’s about it!” I answered, and hurried on to give her a reason before she made up her mind to object.
“Remember, my dear, that your nation is at war; and, though you are at present safe in a country friendly to both belligerents, there are evil-minded people in all countries who will take advantage of anything unusual, to work their own ends. That splendid gift of yours to the nation, while it has made you a public favourite and won for you millions of friends — and proposals — has yet made for you a host of enemies. It is not as if you had given a hospital-ship or an ambulance. Your gift belongs to the war side and calls out active hatred; and no doubt there are men banded together to do you harm. This cannot be allowed. Your friends, and the nation as a whole, would take any step to prevent such a thing; but they might all be powerless if you were hidden anywhere where they could not find you.” As I spoke, Marjory looked at me keenly, not with hostility, but with genuine interest. When I had finished she said quietly:
“That is very well; but now tell me, dear” — how the word thrilled me; it was the first time she had used it to me — ”did Sam Adams fill you up with that argument, or is it your own? Don’t think me nasty; but I want to know something of what is going on. Believe me, I am willing to do all you wish if it is your own will; and I am grateful for your thought for me. But I don’t want you to be a mere mouthpiece for any party moves by the politicians at home.”
“How do you mean?”
“My dear boy, I don’t suppose you know enough of American politics to see how a certain lot would use to their own advantage anything that came in their way. Anybody or anything which the public takes an interest in would be, and is, used by them unscrupulously. Why, if the hangers-on to the war party wanted to make a show, they might enroll my proposers and start a new battalion.” “But,” I remonstrated, “you don’t think the Government is like that?” In reply she smiled:
“I don’t altogether know about that. Parties are parties all the world over. But of course the Washington people wouldn’t do things that are done by local politicians. And one other thing. Don’t imagine for a moment that I think Sam Adams is anything of the kind. He belongs to the service of the nation and takes his orders from his chief. How can he, or any one fixed like him, know the ins and outs of things; except from what he hears privately from home, or gathers from what goes on around him if he is cute?” It appeared to me that all this was tending to establish an argument against taking the American Embassy into confidence, so I struck in before it should be complete. As I was not at liberty to take Marjory into confidence with regard to my source of information, I had to try to get her to agree to what I thought right or necessary on other grounds:
“My dearest, can you not leave out politics, American or otherwise. Wlxat on earth have politics to do with us?” She opened her eyes in wonder; she was reasoning better than I was. With an air of conviction she said:
“Why, everything! If any one wants to do me harm, it must be on the grounds of politics. I don’t believe there is any one in the world who could want to injure me on private grounds. Oh! my dear, I don’t want to talk about it, not even to you; but all my life I have tried to help other people in a quiet way. My guardians would tell you that I have asked them for too much money to give to charities; and personally I have tried to do what a girl can in a helpful way to others. I have been in hospitals and homes of all kinds; and I have classes of girls in my own house and try to make them happier and better. Archie, don’t think poorly of me for speaking like this; but I couldn’t bear that you should think I had no sense of the responsibility of great wealth. I have always looked on it as a trust; and I Hope, my dear, that in time to come you will help me to bear the burden and to share the trust!” I had thought up to now that I couldn’t love her more than I did. But when I heard her words, and recognised the high purpose that lay behind them, and saw the sweet embarrassment which came to her in speaking them to me, I felt that I had been mistaken. She looked at me lovingly, and, holding my hand in both of hers, went on:
“What then could hurt me except it came from the political side. I could quite understand it if Spaniards wished to harm me, for I have done what I can to hinder them from murdering and torturing other victims. And I could understand if some of our own low-down politicians would try to use me as a stalking horse, though they wouldn’t harm me. I want to keep clear of politics; and I tell you frankly that I shall if I can.” , “But Marjory dear, there may be, I believe there are, Spaniards who would try to harm you. If you were in America you would be safer from them; for there at present, whilst the war is on, every stranger is a marked man. Here, on neutral ground, foreigners are free; and they are not watched and observed in the same way. If there were such fiends, and I am told there are, they might do you a harm before any one could know their intention or have time to forestall them.”
All the native independence of Marjory’s race and nature stood out in strong relief as she answered me:
“My dear Archie, I come from a race of men who have held their lives in their hands from the cradle to the grave. My father, and my grandfather, and my great grandfather were pioneers in Illinois, in Kentucky, in the Rockies and California. They knew that there were treacherous foes behind them every hour of their lives; and yet they were not afraid. And I am not afraid either: Their blood is in my veins, and speaks loudly to me when any sense of fear comes near me. Their brains, as well as their hands, kept guard on their lives; and my brains are like theirs. I do not fear any foe, open or secret. Indeed, when I think of a secret foe all the keenness of my people wakes in me, and I want to fight. And this secret work is a way in which a woman can fight in an age like ours. If my enemies plot, I can counter-plot; if they watch without faltering to catch me off guard, I can keep guard unflinchingly. A woman can’t go out now-a-days, except at odd times, and fightwith weapons like Joan of Arc,-or the Maid of Saragossa; but she can do her fighting in her own way, level with her time. I don’t see that if there is to be danger around me, why I shouldn’t do as my ancestors did, fight harder than their foes. Here! let me tell you something now, that I intended to say later. Do you know what race of men I come from? Does my name tell you nothing? If not, then this will!”
She took from her neck, where again it had been concealed by a lace collar, the golden jewel which I had rescued from the sea. As I took it in my hand and examined it she went on:
Once more the sense of impotence grew upon me. We were all as shuttlecocks, buffeted to and fro without power to alter our course. With the thought came that measure of resignation which is the anodyne to despair. In a sort of trance of passivity I heard Marjory’s voice run on: “Therefore, my dear Archie, I will trust to you to help me. The comradeship which has been between us, will never through this grow less; though nearer and dearer and closer ties may seem to overshadow it.”
I could not answer such reasoning; but I took her in my arms and kissed her. I understood, as she did, that my kisses meant acquiescence in her wishes. After a while I said to her:
“One thing I must do. I owe it as a duty of honour to tell my informant that I am unable to give your address to the American Embassy, and that I cannot myself take a part in anything which is to be done except by your consent. But oh! my dear, I fear we are entering on a dangerous course. We are all staying deliberately in the dark, whilst there is light to be had; and we shall need all the light which we can get.” Then a thought struck me and I added, “By the way, I suppose I am free to give information how I can, so long as you are not committed or compromised?” She thought for quite a few minutes before she answered. I could see that she was weighing up the situation, and considering it from all points of view. Then she said, putting both her hands in mine:
“In this, as in all ways, Archie/ I know that I can trust you. There is so much more than even this between us, that I should feel mean to give it a thought hereafter!”.
CHAPTER XXI
THE OLD FAR WEST AND THE NEW
PRESENTLY Marjory jumped up and said:
“Now you must get your wheel and come over to Crom. I am burning to show it to you!” We crossed the little isthmus and climbed the rocks above the Reivie o’ Pircappies. As we topped the steep path I almost fell back with the start I gave.
There sat Gormala MacNiel, fixed and immovable as though she were of stone. She looked so unconcerned that I began to suspect her. At first she seemed not to notice us; but I could see that she was looking at us under her eyelashes. I was anxious to find out how long she had been there, so I said, mentioning her name in order that Marjory might know who she was:
“Why, Gormala, what has become of you? I thought you were off again to the Islands. We haven’t seen you for a long time.” She replied in her usual uncompromising way:
“I hae nae doot that ye thocht me far, gin ye did na see me. Aye! Aye! the time has been lang; but I could wait: I could wait!”
“What were you waiting for?” Marjory’s voice seemed almost as that of a being from another world. It was so fresh, so true, so independent that it seemed at variance with Gormala and her whole existence. As a man beside two women, I felt more as a spectator than as a participant, and my first general impression was that the New World was speaking to the Old. Gormala seemed to me absolutely flabbergasted. She stared, and looked in a dazed way at the girl, standing up as she did so with the instinctive habit, ingrained through centuries of custom, of an inferior to a superior. Then she moved her hand across her forehead, as though to clear her brain, before she replied:
“What was I waitin’ for? I’ll tell ye, an ye will. I was waitin’ for the fulfillment o’ the Doom. The Voices hae spoken; and what they hae said, will be. There be them that would stand in the way o’ Fate, and would try to hinder the cornin’ that must be. But they will fail; they will fail! They can no more block the river o’ time wi’ ony deeds o’ mon, than they can dam the spate wi’ a bairn’s playtoy.” Again came Marjory’s searching question, with all the mystery-dispelling freshness of her unfettered youth; and indeed it seemed as if the Old-world mystery could not hold its dignity in the face of overt, direct questioning:
“By the way, what was it that the Doom said? Was it anything that an American girl can understand?” Gormala gazed at her in manifest wonder. To her, reared in the atmosphere of the Old Far West, this product of the New Far West seemed like a being of another world. Had Marjory been less sweet in her manner than she was, or less fair to look upon, less dignified, or less grave, the old woman would probably have shown hostility at once. But it seemed to me impossible that even a witch-woman could be hostile to Marjory to-day. She looked so sweet, and kind and happy; so bright and joyous; so much like the incarnation of ideal girlhood, that criticism was disarmed, and hostility could not force a way into the charmed circle of that radiant presence. To me, her attitude towards Gormala was incomprehensible. She knew Gormala, for I had told her of who and what the Seer was, and of the prophecies and warnings that she had already uttered; and yet from her manner she appeared ignorant of all concerning both her and them. She was not conciliatory after the manner of the young who wish to please the old, or to ingratiate themselves with them. She was not hostile, as would be one who had determined on opposition. About her or her manner there was nothing hard, or frivolous or contradictory. And yet it was apparent to me that she had some fixed, determined purpose of her own; and it became before long apparent to me also, that the other woman knew, or at any rate suspected, such an existence, though she could neither comprehend nor locate it. Gormala seemed once, twice, as though she were about to speak, but hesitated; at last with an effort she spoke out:
“The Voice o’ the Doom no sounds in words such as mortals can hear. It is spoken in sounds that are heard of the inner ear. What matter the words, when the ear that hearkens can understan’!”
“But,” said Marjory, “could I not be told the words, or if there were no actual words, could you not give me in your own words what the sounds uttered seemed to you to mean?” To anyone but a Seer such a request would seem reasonable enough; but visionaries who have a receptive power of their own, and who learn by means whose methods are unconscious to them, can hardly undertake to translate the dim, wide-stretching purpose of the powers of the Unknown into bald, narrow, human speech. Gormala’s brows wrinkled up in thought; then a scowl of disappointment swept over her face. In an angry tone she turned to me and said: