“I have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never
could bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and
handsome child. In this envelope,” and he produced a letter from
his pocket addressed to myself, “I have jotted down the course I
wish followed in the boy’s education. It is a somewhat peculiar
one. At any rate, I could not entrust it to a stranger. Once
more, will you undertake it?”
“I must first know what I am to undertake,” I answered.
“You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till
he is twenty-five years of age—not to send him to school,
remember. On his twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will
end, and you will then, with the keys that I give you now” (and
he placed them on the table) “open the iron box, and let him see
and read the contents, and say whether or no he is willing to
undertake the quest. There is no obligation on him to do so. Now,
as regards terms. My present income is two thousand two hundred a
year. Half of that income I have secured to you by will for life,
contingently on your undertaking the guardianship—that is, one
thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for you will have to
give up your life to it, and one hundred a year to pay for the
board of the boy. The rest is to accumulate till Leo is
twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to
undertake the quest of which I spoke.”
“And suppose I were to die?” I asked.
“Then the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance.
Only be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your
will. Listen, Holly, don’t refuse me. Believe me, this is to your
advantage. You are not fit to mix with the world—it would only
embitter you. In a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your
College, and the income that you will derive from that combined
with what I have left you will enable you to live a life of
learned leisure, alternated with the sport of which you are so
fond, such as will exactly suit you.”
He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated. The
charge seemed so very strange.
“For my sake, Holly. We have been good friends, and I have no
time to make other arrangements.”
“Very well,” I said, “I will do it, provided there is nothing in
this paper to make me change my mind,” and I touched the envelope
he had put upon the table by the keys.
“Thank you, Holly, thank you. There is nothing at all. Swear to
me by God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my
directions to the letter.”
“I swear it,” I answered solemnly.
“Very well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the
account of your oath, for though I am dead and forgotten, yet I
shall live. There is no such thing as death, Holly, only a
change, and, as you may perhaps learn in time to come, I believe
that even that change could under certain circumstances be
indefinitely postponed,” and again he broke into one of his
dreadful fits of coughing.
“There,” he said, “I must go, you have the chest, and my will
will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the
child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly,
and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by
Heaven, I will haunt you.”