‘Why, no one knows I am taking this to Ballarat to-day,’ said Madame,
drawing on her gloves.
‘Don’t they?’ thought M. Vandeloup, as he took his seat beside her. ‘She
doesn’t know that I’ve told Pierre.’
And without a single thought for the woman whose confidence he was
betraying, and of whose bread and salt he had partaken, Vandeloup shook
the reins, and the horse started down the road in the direction of
Ballarat, carrying Madame Midas and her nugget.
‘You carry Caesar and his fortunes, M. Vandeloup,’ she said, with a
smile.
‘I do better,’ he answered, gaily, ‘I carry Madame Midas and her luck.’
CHAPTER IX
LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM
Mr Mark Marchurst was a very peculiar man. Brought up in the
Presbyterian religion, he had early displayed his peculiarity by
differing from the elders of the church he belonged to regarding their
doctrine of eternal punishment. They, holding fast to the teachings of
Knox and Calvin, looked upon him in horror for daring to have an opinion
of his own; and as he refused to repent and have blind belief in the
teachings of those grim divines, he was turned out of the bosom of
the church. Drifting to the opposite extreme, he became a convert to
Catholicism; but, after a trial of that ancient faith, found it would
not suit him, so once more took up a neutral position. Therefore, as he
did not find either religion perfectly in accordance with his own views,
he took the law into his own hands and constructed one which was a queer
jumble of Presbyterianism, Catholicism, and Buddhism, of which last
religion he was a great admirer. As anyone with strong views and a
clever tongue will find followers, Mr Marchurst soon gathered a number
of people around him who professed a blind belief in the extraordinary
doctrines he promulgated. Having thus founded a sect he got sufficient
money out of them to build a temple--for so he called the barn-like
edifice he erected--and christened this new society which he had called
into existence ‘The Elect’. About one hundred people were members of his
church, and with their subscriptions, and also having a little money of
his own, he managed to live in a quiet manner in a cottage on the Black
Hill near to his temple. Every Sunday he held forth morning and evening,
expounding his views to his sparse congregation, and was looked upon
by them as a kind of prophet. As a matter of fact, the man had that
peculiar power of fascination which seems to be inseparable from the
prophetic character, and it was his intense enthusiasm and eloquent
tongue that cast a spell over the simple-minded people who believed in
him. But his doctrines were too shallow and unsatisfactory ever to take
root, and it could be easily seen that when Marchurst died ‘The Elect’
would die also,--that is, as a sect, for it was not pervaded by that
intense religious fervour which is the life and soul of a new doctrine.
The fundamental principles of his religion were extremely simple; he