Murdoch

“ The deadly bitterness which possessed him was terrible; he was livid with it.
"I've thought of a good many," he said. "I've looked on at 'em as they stood round her—chaps of her own sort, with money and the rest of it; but I never thought of you—not once."
"No," said Murdoch, "I dare say not."
"No—not once," the man repeated. "Get up, and let's take a look at you," he said. "Happen I've not had the right notion on you."
"Don't say anything you'll repent," said Murdoch. "It's bad enough as it is." ”

“ Once or twice during its delivery Murdoch glanced at Janey and Mrs. Briarley. The woman, during intervals of eager pacifying of the big baby, lifted her pale face and listened devoutly. Janey sat respectable and rigorous, her eyes fixed upon the pulpit, her huge shawl folded about her, her bonnet slipping backward at intervals, and requiring to be repeatedly rearranged by a smart hustling somewhere in the region of the crown. ”

“ Then added even more awkwardly still, "I've heard Murdoch say you were—Murdoch."
[Pg 154]
The disfavor with which she had examined him began to be mingled with distrust. She hitched her stool a few inches backward.
"Mester Murdoch!" she echoed. "Aye, I know him well enow."
"He comes here every day or so?"
"Aye, him an' me's good friends."
"He's got a good many friends," he said.
"Aye," she answered. "He's a noice chap. Most o' folk tak' to him. Theer's Mr. Ffrench now and her."
"He goes there pretty often?"
"Aye, oftener than he goes any wheer else. ”

“ In half an hour's time Murdoch had left Broxton far behind him. He left the open road and rambled across fields and through lanes. The people in the farm-houses, who knew him, saw him pass looking straight before him and walking steadily like a man with an end in view. ”

“ It always cost him a struggle to shut out the world and life and concentrate himself upon his labor in those days. A year before it would have been different, now there was always a battle to be fought. There were dreams to be held at bay and memories which his youth and passion made overwhelming forces.
But to-night, somehow, it was Christian Murdoch who disturbed him. There had been a terrible wistfulness in her voice—a wistfulness mingled with long-repressed fear, which had touched him more than all. ”

“ Murdoch answered, absently.
Ffrench glanced around at the jumble of mechanical odds and ends, the plans and models in various stages of neglect or completion.
"It's a queer place," he commented, "and it has an air [Pg 275] of significance. It's crammed with ideas—of one kind and another."
"Yes," Murdoch answered, as before.
Ffrench approached him and laid his hand weakly on his shoulder.
"You are a fellow of ideas," he said, "and you have a good deal before you. Whatever disappointments you might meet with, you would always have a great deal before you. You have ideas. ”

“ I thought he looked ashamed, and his hand trembled so, that brought to my mind more forcibly my blessed Master’s commands, ‘If thy brother sinneth against thee, seven, and seventy-times-seven, thou shalt forgive him.’ And, after all, Sir Murdoch, where is the comfort of an unrelenting temper? This man may turn out a good husband, and repay my forgiveness of him an hundred-fold by his kindness to my poor heedless girl. He may, if he will, make a worthy man, and a good father, and be a comfort to me: at any rate, I have done my duty, and pleased my blessed Caroline. ”

“ The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own blood, not a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as M'Callum More, the chief of her clan?"
"It is on his part, then, that you demand it?" said the outlaw. The servant of the Marquis assented.
"And you will practise no evil against the maiden?—I have done her wrong enough already."
"No evil, upon the word of a Christian man," replied Murdoch. ”

“ It occurred to Haworth that some sudden physical ailment had attacked him. He went up to his side.
"What have you found, lad?" he demanded.
The next instant his own eyes discovered what it was. An open carriage was just drawing up before the bank. Rachel Ffrench sat in it, and Saint Méran was with her.
He looked at them a second or so and then looked at Murdoch—at his wretched face and his hollow eyes. An unsavory exclamation burst from him.
"What!" he cried out after it. "There's another man, is there? Is it that?"
"Yes," was Murdoch's monotonous reply. "There's another man." ”

“ Give me some more brandy, Martha."
So Mr. Murdoch, promising to preserve absolute silence, went away like a man recovering from a bad dream, and grandpapa, having taken a great deal more spirit than was good for him, slumbered uneasily on the sofa.
In his dreams I could hear him wrangling with something supernatural, and evidently getting the worst of the argument. "It's too bad," I heard him say. "It's simple sharp practice to jump on an old man like me, and make him sign a one-sided thing like that when he was half asleep!" ”

“ He took down his overcoat and began to put it on,
"Tell 'em," he said to Murdoch as he went out,—"tell 'em I'm gone home, and shan't be back till morning. Keep the rest to yourself."
He went out, shutting the door with a bang. Murdoch stood at the window and watched him drive away in his gig. ”

“ Murdoch answered. "After dark."
At home he only told them one thing—that in the morning he was going to London and did not know when he should return. He did not go to the Works during the day, but remained at home trying to rest. But he could not sleep and the day seemed to lag heavily. In the afternoon he left the sofa on which he had lain through the morning and went out. He walked slowly through the town and at last turned down the lane which led to the Briarley's cottage. He felt as if there would be a sort of relief to the tenseness of his mood in a brief interview with Janey. ”

“ The brain showed horrible and shrunk through the membrane. A pair of lidless idiot eyes stared unmovingly in Murdoch's direction. The whole jawless head was the size of Murdoch's two fists doubled up, if he could judge the size through the distortion of the ice.
Sick but unable to vomit, Murdoch forced his eyes away from the thing. Now the aliens spoke to him, from somewhere. "Pretty isn't he Murdoch. He makes a good bank for the virus. You were right you know it does offer great longevity but it has its own ideas of what a host should be." ”

“ Stackhurst knit his brows in thought.
"Ian Murdoch held them back," said he; "he would insist upon some algebraic demonstration before breakfast. Poor chap, he is dreadfully cut up about it all."
"And yet I gather that they were not friends."
"At one time they were not. But for a year or more Murdoch has been as near to McPherson as he ever could be to anyone. He is not of a very sympathetic disposition by nature." ”

“ Since the night of his return from his journey, Stephen Murdoch had been out no more. The neighbors watched for him in vain. The wooden case stood unopened in his room,—he had never spoken of it. Through the long hours of the day he lay upon the sofa, either dozing or in silent wakefulness, and at length instead of upon the sofa he lay upon the bed, not having strength to rise.
About three months after he had taken his place at Haworth's, Hilary came home one evening to find his mother waiting for him at the door. She shed no tears, there was in her face only a hopeless terror. ”

“ Murdoch herself becomingly dressed, her face beaming from the soft lace of her new cap-frill, no wonder that the heart of this once lonely, suffering woman swelled with maternal pride and with gratitude to God that so much good had fallen to her lot. ”

“ It is not every man who keeps on hand a genius. Naturally his friends heard of Murdoch often. Those who came to the Works were taken to his work-room as to a point of interest. He became in time a feature, and was spoken of with a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment. To each visitor Ffrench told, in strict confidence, the story of his father with due effect. ”

“ It was while in the midst of this work that he received a letter from Gerard Ffrench, who was still abroad.
Going into his room one day Murdoch found him reading it and looking excited.
"Here's a chap as would be the chap for me," he said, "if brass were iron—that chap Ffrench."
"What does he want?" Murdoch asked.
"Naught much," grimly. "He's got a notion of coming back here, and he'd like to go into partnership with me. That's what he's drivin' at. He'd like to be a partner with Jem Haworth." ”

“ He has known Grant and Sheridan well, lived in camp with them at the same mess-table, and has the highest opinion of the patriotism and probity of both of them. There is no mistake about one thing. Mr. Murdoch made himself a power during the war, and now that is over does not cease to work, nor does he allow himself to presume upon the laurels he has won nor to brag of his own work.
Saturday morning, November 13, 1875.—After a western journey, left for home. Sunday met James E. Murdoch in the cars at Springfield. It was about six o’clock A.M., but he was bound for Newton. ”

“ Miss Ffrench looked on at all of this with a great deal of interest.
"He does not care for the place as he did,"she said to Murdoch. "He does not like to share his power with another man. It is a nightmare to him."
By this time, she had seen Murdoch the oftener of the two. Mr. Ffrench's fancy for him was more enthusiastic than his fancy for the young man from Manchester or the Cumberland mechanic. ”

“ Murdoch was standing opposite the house in which Rachel Ffrench slept. She went to him and put her hand on his arm.
"What are you doing here?" she said, in a low voice. He turned and gave her a cold, vacant look. He did not seem at all surprised at finding her dark, beautiful young face at his very shoulder.
"I don't know. Can you tell me?"
"We have been waiting for you," she said. "We cannot rest when you are away."
"Do you want me to go home and go to bed decently and sleep?" he said. "Do you suppose I would not, if I could? I always start from here and come back here. ”

“ And the effect upon Eliot as he listened was curious; it was twofold. For while at first the chatter wounded him like insults aimed directly at the dead, at the same time, to his deep disgust, it stirred all his former love of practical, energetic action. The old lust and fever to be up and doing, helping the world go round, making money and worldly position, woke more and more, as Murdoch's vigorous, crude personality stung his will, stung also desires he thought forever dead. ”

“ The gymnasium he'd use later.
He went outside, walking gingerly on the gravel. The rear of the building was a featureless semi-circle, the lawns and hedges unvaried. He took deep breaths of the air perfumed by flowers.
He jumped at a sudden buzz near his elbow. A bee circled up from a blossom and headed for the top of the building to disappear over the edge. Murdoch considered jumping for a hold and hauling himself up to the top of the building to see if there were hives there, but decided not to risk the aliens' displeasure. ”

“ And from him and from Ian I knew all there was to be known. It was a hard New Year for all, and since that day, till a night of which I will tell you, my father brooded and drank, drank and brooded, and my mother wept through the winter gloamings and spent the nights starin’ into the peats, wi’ her knittin’ lyin’ on her lap.
“For when they had gone to seek Murdoch that Hogmanay night, they came upon him away from his sheep. But this was what they saw. There was a black rock that stood out in the moonshine, with the water all about it; and on this rock Murdoch lay naked, and laughing wild. ”

“ CHAPTER XII. GRANNY DIXON.
The next time Janey brought her father's dinner to the Yard she sought out Murdoch in a dejected mood. She found him reading over his lunch in the sunshine, and she sat down opposite to him, folding her arms on her lap.
"We're i' trouble again at our house," she said. "We're allus i' trouble. If it is na one thing, it's another."
Murdoch shut his book and leaned back upon his pile of lumber to listen. He always listened.
"What is it this time?"
"This toime?" querulously. "This is th' worst o' th' lot. ”

“ Murdoch, of Ealing, knows the truth. Rise up and tell everybody, grandpapa!"
He shaved now, with the exception of his moustache. This he tugged and twisted, and looked at me with undisguised contempt.
"Well, that fairly takes the crumb!" he said. "D' you actually suggest that I should go on the housetops and cry, 'Look at me, look at me, good people; I'm nearly a hundred and seven years of age; I've signed a treaty with the devil. He will have what is left of me in about three years. This ancient woman is my granddaughter. Come, all of you, pray for us'? Would you suggest I did that, Martha?" ”

“ Murdoch answered.
"Well, it's easy told. You said I'd be cooler to-day, and I am. A night gives a man time to face a thing straight. I'd been making a fool of myself before you came up, but I made a bigger fool of myself afterward. There's the end on it."
"I suppose," said Murdoch, "that it was natural enough you should look at the thing differently just then. Perhaps I made a fool of myself too."
"You!" said Haworth, roughly. "You were cool enow."
Later Ffrench came in, and spent an hour with him, and after his departure Haworth made the rounds of the place in one of the worst of his moods. ”

“ Almost unconsciously, Murdoch thrust his hands into his pockets also, but the action had rather a reflective than a defiant expression.
"It's lasted a pretty long time, hasn't it?" he remarked.
Haworth answered him with a laugh.
"Egad! You take it cool enough," he said. ”