The World's Greatest Books - Volume 4 Part 29

Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered this secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the child had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the _role_ of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to Madame Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from the unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was thought to be dead.

The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at the same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the pa.s.sword that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a request for money.

At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help her supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented.

Taking M. Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the last moment, just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to deter Lagors from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on the door which formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the great detective to unravel the mystery.

Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the scandal being made public.

M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife had p.a.w.ned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon them when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man was his wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times.

Fortunately, none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire again Lecoq had rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp.

It was the moment of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic skill of which he was a master, he laid bare the whole story and disclosed the true ident.i.ty of Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled Lagors to refund the 12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a scandal allowed the young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be wanting to his triumph, he obtained the consent of the banker to Bertomy's marriage with Madeline.

Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.

Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet M. Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired, promising to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour later M. Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a friend of his named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that girl had been won from him by a man who cared nothing for her.

"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that you, Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas is...."

With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq appeared.

"Caldas!" cried Nina.

"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."

After the moments of amazement had pa.s.sed, Lecoq turned to leave the room, but Nina barred the way.

"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."

Prosper went from the office alone.

JOHN GALT

Annals of the Parish

John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained for a commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in the office of a merchant in that seaport. Removing to London, Gait engaged in business and afterwards travelled extensively to forward mercantile enterprises in all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a Sicilian story, published in 1816, but it was not until 1820 that he found his true literary expression, when the "Ayrshire Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine." The success of this tale was so great that Gait finished the "Annals of the Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813, and they were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively and humorous picture of Scottish character, manners, and feeling during the era described. In the latter part of his life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He died on April 11, 1838.

_I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder_

The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of me whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was flung upon us as we pa.s.sed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But I endured it with a resigned spirit, compa.s.sionating their wilfulness and blindness.

The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up at the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."

When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This will do well enough--timber to timber."

After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a round of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors in some places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying to their mothers, "Here's the f.e.c.kless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl received me kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.

As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself.

When her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way, and offered her some a.s.sistance frae the Session, but she refused help out of the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.

It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excis.e.m.e.n by night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea and land; continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an awful time o't.

I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said, "was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can give and take to pluck him from this life.

In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.

Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down by the strong hand of government.

_II.--The Minister's Second Marriage_

A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion, and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I think she might have wrestled through the winter. However, it was ordered otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas Day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on the New Year's Day.

Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no better than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for the monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy woman as she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was greatly thought of at the time. My servant la.s.sies, having no eye of a mistress over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not know what to do. At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and discreet elder, and told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.

In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration, on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it is said, "Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy, and set the servant la.s.sies to spin wool for making blankets and lint for sheets and napery. She sent the b.u.t.ter on market days to Irville, her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into the bank.

The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.

_III.--A Runaway Match_

About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends and his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots Regiment. He came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother, and during the visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence with Kate Malcolm. A while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the manse and begged me to go to her. So I went; and there she was, with gum-flowers on her head, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter.

"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without delay."

"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began to sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was confounded, but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a letter that had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and that this was not the first love-letter which had pa.s.sed between them.

Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate. Although her ladyship was so overcome with pa.s.sion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house.

Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived at a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way; but no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The young folk had discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird came to the manse and begged us to take him in.

He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.

We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly woman with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for the night. After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to the marriage. It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the young couple setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and authorising me to break the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this performance, for the servants jealoused what had been done, and told her ladyship. When I entered the room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam.

She sent her coachman on horseback to overtake them, which he did at Kilmarnock, and they returned in the morning, when her ladyship was as cagey and meikle taken up with them as if they had gotten her full consent and privilege from the first. Captain Macadam afterwards bought a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a judicious income, to Mrs.

Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she should any longer be dependent upon her own industry. For this the young man got a name like a sweet odour in all the country-side.

It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger, man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected with the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make a midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time to time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain, that was just a father to him.

In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her, came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard, another midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They were dressed in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his mother and his sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the manse, and got Mrs. Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In short, we had a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, Lady Macadam made for them at a ball, and it was a delight to see how old and young of all degrees made much of Charles.