Murchison

“ Complete silence held for some minutes, save for an occasional word from Murchison. Parker Steel’s face was in the shadow. The hand that held the lamp quivered a little as he watched his rival’s face. There was something in the concentrated earnestness of Murchison’s examination that made Mrs. Betty’s husband feel vaguely uncomfortable.
Murchison rose at last with a deep sigh, stood looking at Miss Pennington a moment, and then handed the ophthalmoscope to Steel. The lamp changed hands and the men places. Miss Pennington’s supply of nerve power, however, was giving out. ”

“ Tired of the army, and possessing a great amount of energy and physical power, Murchison longed for a profession, and at one time seriously contemplated entering the Church. But money was scarce, and he went with his wife to live economically in Italy. This was an epoch in his life, and he went by way of Paris, and there he heard Cuvier lecture. At Geneva he met De Candolle, and as his wife had relatives at Vevay, they spent some time there, and Murchison began taking walking tours. ”

“ It was possible to pose behind the barrier of another man’s strength.
That same Saturday night Murchison’s highly educated assistant had been dragged out of bed at two in the morning, and taken in a bumping milk-cart to a farm some five miles north of Roxton. His youth had been flouted on the very threshold by a stern, keen-eyed woman who had expressed herself dissatisfied with the offer of a juvenile opinion. Dr. Inglis had blushed, and rallied his dignity. Dr. Murchison had intrusted the practice to him; what more could a mere farmer’s wife desire? ”

“ CHAPTER IV No one in Roxton would have imagined that any shadow of dread darkened the windows of the house in Lombard Street. Even to his most intimate friends, James Murchison would have appeared as the one man least likely to be dominated by any inherited taint of body or mind. His face was the face of a man who had mastered his own passions, the mouth firm yet generous, the jaw powerful, the eyes and forehead suggesting the philosopher behind the virility of the man of action. ”

“ A flat stone may remain in respectable and undisturbed equilibrium for centuries. The poised pinnacle is pressed upon by every wind that blows.
The fall of some such pinnacle is a dramatic incident in the experience of the community. The noise thereof is in a hundred ears, and the splintered fragments may be gaped at by the crowd. Thus it had been with James Murchison in Roxton town. Neither doctors nor engine-drivers are permitted to indulge in drink, and in Murchison’s case the downfall had been the more dramatic by his absolute refusal to qualify the disgrace. ”

“ Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door, over which the sign "John Murchison: Hardware," had explained thirty years of varying commercial fortune. They had pretty well begun life together in Elgin. John Murchison was one of those who had listened to Mr Drummond's trial sermon, and had given his vote to "call" him to the charge. Since then there had been few Sundays when, morning and evening, Mr Murchison had not been in his place at the top of his pew, where his dignified and intelligent head appeared with the isolated significance of a strong individuality. ”

“ With hearing lectures on science, scientific papers and discussions, attending evening soirées, and the opportunity of hearing and talking to men who had already made themselves famous, Murchison found enough fully to fill up his time, and to make London life a very different thing to him from what it had been in the old days, when he used to escape to town from the monotony of a country barrack. With his characteristic ardour, he had not completed his first winter’s studies in geology before he longed to be off into the field to observe for himself. ”

“ Margaret Murchison, the eldest of the three children, was too strongly built, physically and mentally, to be beautiful. It is indisputably true that where nature puts strength she also puts hard lines, and every feature of Margaret’s face bespoke the positive nature; quick to comprehend and fearless to execute. Yet hers was by no means a masculine or an ugly face. Though strongly marked, there was still an indefinable attraction in the warm depths of her blue eyes and the smile of her mobile and sympathetic mouth. ”

“ Murchison turned abruptly from the porter to find Miss Carmagee and Catherine kissing, and Jack tugging at his godfather’s hands. It was Porteus in a new Panama hat, whose whiteness made his face look brown as an Asiatic’s.
“Ah, my dear Murchison, ten minutes late; beast of a line this.”
“It was good of you to come.”
“Eh, what?—not a bit of it. Where’s your luggage? I abhor stations; can’t talk in comfort. This imp of darkness can come along with us.”
An unprejudiced observer would have imagined the little man in the most peppery of tempers. ”

“ She knew botany, and tried to interest her husband in it, but he did not care for it; then she tried to learn mineralogy to get him to help her. But Murchison got deeper and deeper into the love of field sports, and took a house at Melton Mowbray and hunted six days in the week. Murchison got tired at last, and having met Sir Humphrey Davy again, was advised by him to interest himself about chemistry. So Murchison sold his horses and gave up his establishment, really intending to settle in London. ”

“ And, Dr Drummond, deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison's view of the matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision to rest upon it. It must stand by itself."
"You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt should not be influenced by the fact that it means the wrecking of your own happiness and that of another person. I can't agree, Finlay. I spoke first of Advena Murchison because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart. I feel, too, that someone should put her case. Her own father would never open his lips. ”

“ Murchison stepped in, bending his head by force of habit, as though accustomed to cottage doorways. Mrs. Bains in a starched apron made way for him like a ship in sail. She was a very capable woman, so said her neighbors, black-eyed, sturdy, with a nose of the retroussé type, and patches of color over her rather prominent cheek-bones. ”

“ Murchison was a thorough gentleman, kind and chivalrous, but he was a man of the world, with a certain hard strain in him, a man who would submit everything to the test of cold, practical reasoning, not to be hoodwinked or led astray. ”

“ John Murchison oftenest said nothing, but would glance significantly at his wife, frowning and pursing his lips when she, who had most spirit of them all, would exclaim, "You'll be Premier yet, Lorne!" It was no part of the Murchison policy to draw against future balances: they might believe everything, they would express nothing; and I doubt whether Lorne himself had any map of the country he meant to travel over in that vague future, already defining in local approbation, and law business coming freely in with a special eye on the junior partner. ”

“ Shaking in every limb, Herr Murchison opened his lips to speak. “My headquarters are . . . Munich!” he said in a strained voice.
“Turn your head to the right!” shouted Grundt suddenly. “Turn your head, I say! Meinhardt, Felix! Thrust him down under the lamp!”
Strong arms forced Herr Murchison brutally forward until his chest rested on the cloth. His spectacles fell off. The bright light streamed full in his face.
231
“Desmond Okewood, bei Gott!” roared Grundt. “You poor fool, did you think you could hoodwink me? Don’t you know that a man can never disguise his ears? ”

“ Perhaps none of the people whose wounds he dressed guessed how bitter a wound was bleeding in the heart of this sad-eyed, patient-faced man.
John Tugler sidled in when Murchison had pinned up the last bandage. He swung the door to gently, sighed, and pretended to examine the entries in the ledger. Murchison was washing his hands at the sink, staring hard at the water as it splashed from the tap upon his fingers.
“Not much visiting to-day.”
“No.”
“I’ll hire a cab, and drive down to Black End. Most of them seem to lie that way.”
Murchison was looking for a clean place in the roller-towel. ”

“ James Murchison bent forward, and drew a deep breath as though in pain. The flash of sympathy was instant in its passage. Husband and wife were thinking the same thoughts.
“Kate, you must help me to fight this down—”
“Yes.”
“For their sakes, the children—for yours. I think that I have worked too hard of late. When the strength’s out of one, the devil comes in and takes command. And the servants, you are sure—?”
She felt the spasmodic girding of all his manhood, and yearned to him with all her heart. ”

“ Stella was vindicated; Mrs Murchison did have both. The chicken salad gleamed at one end of the table and the scalloped oysters smoked delicious at the other. Lorne had charge of the cold tongue and Advena was entrusted with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were expected to think about the tea biscuits and the cake, for Lobelia had never yet had a successor that was any hand with company. Mrs Murchison had enough to do to pour out the tea. ”

“ What can the Murchisons want with such a cottage?”
Her husband, cold intellectualist, warmed to her beauty as to true Falernian.
“Am I a crystal gazer?”
“Read me the riddle.”
Parker Steel laughed, and looked at her with a slight loosening of the mouth.
“Riddle-de-dee! You women are always analyzing imaginary motives. Murchison has been looking run to death, lean as an overdriven horse. I don’t blame him for wishing to munch his oats in rustic seclusion.”
Mrs. Betty bubbled over with sparkles of intuition. ”

“ The young people were well ahead; Mrs Murchison, on her husband's arm, stepped along with the spring of an impetus undisclosed.
"Is it to be the Doctor tonight?" asked John Murchison. "He was so hoarse this morning I wouldn't be surprised to see Finlay in the pulpit. They're getting only morning services in East Elgin just now, while they're changing the lighting arrangements."
"Are they, indeed? Well, I hope they'll change them and be done with it, for I can't say I'm anxious for too much of their Mr Finlay in Knox Church."
"Oh, you like the man well enough for a change, Mother!" ”

“ Returning to England, after receiving the thanks of the Emperor Nicholas, Murchison again became President of the Geological Society, and with increased experience endeavoured to work out more fully than before, the old rocks of Wales, which he and Sedgwick had laboured over in common. Murchison and Sedgwick, however, began at this time to misunderstand one another, and those admirable men, the one having recognized the higher strata, and the other the lower, began to differ regarding the line of separation of their work. ”

“ Mrs Murchison remains the central figure, nevertheless, with her family radiating from her, gathered to help or to hinder in one of those domestic crises which arose when the Murchisons were temporarily deprived of a "girl." Everybody was subject to them in Elgin, everybody had to acknowledge and face them. Let a new mill be opened, and it didn't matter what you paid her or how comfortable you made her, off she would go, and you might think yourself lucky if she gave a week's warning. ”

“ As to Advena’s simple statement that Miss Cameron had made a second choice of the Doctor, changing her mind, as far as Mrs Murchison could see, without rhyme or reason, that Mrs Murchison took leave to find a very poor explanation. Advena’s own behaviour toward the rejection is one of the things which her mother declares, probably truly, that she never will understand. To pick up a man in the actual fling of being thrown over, will never, in Mrs Murchison’s eyes, constitute a decorous proceeding. ”

“ Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. "They've always got you to blow their trumpet, Mother," he replied.
"And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about Lorne! He says that if the English Government starts that line of boats to Halifax the country will owe it to him, much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody else."
"Dr Drummond likes to talk," said John Murchison.
"Lorne's keeping his end up all right," remarked Stella, jumping off her bicycle in time to hear what her mother said. "It's great, that old Wallingham asking him to dinner. ”

“ The gods of old were prone to mortal weakness in the flesh, and no man is so masterful that he can command his own destiny unshaken. We are what the world and our ancestors have made us. The individual hand is there to hold the tiller, but even a Ulysses must meet the storm.
Murchison turned his tired face towards the light, heaved back his shoulders, and sighed like a man in pain. He rose, put out the lamp, locked the study door, and taking his candle went up to his dressing-room that looked out on the garden. ”

“ Both dispositions have a tendency to overwork the heart; and it is easy to imagine that they might interact. Lorne Murchison’s wish, which was indeed a burning longing and necessity, to believe in the Dora Milburn of his passion, had been under a strain since the night on which he brought her the pledge which she refused to wear. ”

“ Miles Murchison teach us?"
It was a great temptation to me to give in. No boy of fifteen likes to be laughed at; nor to make enemies; nor to have to stand alone. For one moment I was tempted. Mr. Laurence was away for another hour or more, I thought, and if I did let them stay a few minutes they would not do any mischief, and nobody would know. ”

“ But I think by now it'll be kin," said Mr Murchison. "It was good to see the heather again, but a man lives best where he's taken root."
"Yes, yes. You seem to do a large business here, Mr Murchison."
"Pretty well for the size of the place. You must get Lorne to take you over Elgin. It's a fair sample of our rising manufacturing towns."
"I hope he will. I understand you manufacture to some extent yourself?"
"We make our own stoves and a few odd things."
"You don't send any across the Atlantic yet?" queried Hesketh jocularly. ”