CHAPTER XLVIII.
FINISHED.
One night, Murdoch, on leaving the house, said to Christian:
"Don't expect me until morning. I may not be back until then. I think I shall work all night."
She did not ask him why. For several days she had seen that a singular mood was upon him, that he was restless. Sometimes, when he met her eye unexpectedly, he started and colored and turned away, as if he was a little afraid. She stood upon the step and watched him until he disappeared in the darkness, and then shut the door and went in to his mother.
A quarter of an hour afterward he entered his workroom, and shut himself in and brought out the model.
He sat looking at it a moment, and then stretched forth his hand to touch it. Suddenly he drew it back and let it fall heavily upon the table. "Good Heavens!" he cried. "Did he ever feel so near as this, and then fail?" The shock was almost unbearable. "Are there to be two of us?" he said. "Was not one enough?" But he put forth his hand again a minute later, though his heart beat like a trip-hammer. "It rests with me to prove it," he said—"with me!"
As he worked, the dead silence about him seemed to become more intense. His own breathing was a distinct .jpg)
YOU'VE BEEN HERE ALL NIGHT."
It had been a dark night, but the morning rose bright and clear. The sun, streaming in at the one window, fell upon the model, pushed far back upon the table, and on Murdoch himself, sitting with his forehead resting upon his hands. He had been sitting thus some time—he did not know how long. He had laid his last tool down before the first streak of pink had struck across the gray sky. He was tired and chill with the morning air, but he had not thought of going home yet, or even quite recognized that the night was past. His lantern still burned beside him. He was roused at last by a sound in the outer room. The gates had not been unlocked nor the bell rung, but some one had come in. The next moment Haworth opened the door and stood in the threshold, looking in on him.
"You've been here all night," he said.
"Yes," answered Murdoch. He turned a little and pointed to the model, speaking slowly, as if he were but half awake.
"I think," he said, "that it is complete."
He said it with so little appearance of emotion or exultation that Haworth was dumbfounded. He laid a hand on his shoulder and shook him a little.
"Wake up, man!" he said. "You're dazed."
"No," he answered, "not dazed. I've had time to think it over. It has been finished two or three hours." All at once he burst into a laugh. "I did not think," he said, "that it would be you I should tell the news to first."
Haworth sat down near him with a dogged face.
"Nay," he replied, "nor me either."
They sat and stared at each other for a moment in silence. Then Murdoch drew a long, wearied breath.
"But it is done," he said, "nevertheless."
After that he got up and began to make his preparations to go home while Haworth sat and watched him.
"I shall want to go away," he said. "When I come back I shall know what the result is to be."
"Start to-morrow morning," said Haworth. "And keep close. By the time you come back——"
He stopped and left his chair, and the bell which called the hands to work began its hurried clanging. At the door he paused.
"When shall you take it away?" he asked.
"To-night," 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. When he went into the house, Mr. Briarley was seated in Mrs. Dixon's chair unscientifically balancing his latest-born upon his knee. His aspect was grave and absorbed; he was heated and disheveled with violent exertion; the knot of his blue cotton neckerchief had twisted itself under his right ear in a painfully suggestive manner. Under some stress of circumstances he had been suddenly pressed into service, and his mode of placating his offspring was at once unprofessional and productive of frantic excitement.
But the moment he caught sight of Murdoch an alarming change came upon him. His eyes opened to their fullest extent, his jaw fell and the color died out of his face. He rose hurriedly, dropped the youngest Briarley into his chair and darted out of the house, in such trepidation that his feet slipped under him when he reached the lower step, where he fell with a loud clatter of wooden clogs, scrambling up again with haste and difficulty and disappearing at once.
Attracted by the disturbance, Janey darted in from the inner room barely in time to rescue the deserted young Briarley.
"Wheer's he gone?" she demanded, signifying her father. "I towd her he wur na fit to be trusted! Wheer's he gone?"
"I don't know," Murdoch answered. "I think he ran away because he saw me. What is the trouble?"
"Nay, dunnot ax me! We canna mak' him out, neyther mother nor me. He's been settin' i' th' house fur three days, as if he wur feart to stir out—settin' by th' fire an' shakin' his yed, an' cryin' ivvery now and then. An' here's her i' th' back room to wait on. A noice toime this is fur him to pick to go off in. He mowt ha' waited till she wur done wi'."
As conversation naturally could not flourish under these circumstances, after a few minutes Murdoch took his leave.
It seemed that he had not yet done with Mr Briarley. Passing through the gate, he caught sight of a forlorn figure seated upon the road-side about twenty yards before him, wearing a fustian jacket and a blue neck-cloth knotted under the ear. As he approached, Mr. Briarley looked up, keeping his eyes fixed upon him in a despairing gaze. He did not remove his glance at all, in fact, until Murdoch was within ten feet of him, when, for some entirely inexplicable reason, he rose hurriedly and passed to the other side of the road, and at a distance of some yards ahead sat down, and stared wildly at him again. This singular course he pursued until they had reached the end of the lane, where he sat and watched Murdoch out of sight.
"I thowt," he said, breathing with extreme shortness, "as he ha' done fur me. It wur a wonder as he did na. If I'd coom nigh him or he'd coom nigh me, they'd ha' swore it wur me as did it an's gone according if luck went ag'in 'em."
Then a sudden panic seemed to seize him. He pulled off his cap, and, holding it in both hands, stared into it as if in desperate protest against fate. A large tear fell into the crown, and then another and another. "I canna help it," he said, in a loud and sepulchral whisper. "Look out! Look out!"
And then, probably feeling that even in this he might be committing himself fatally, he got up, glanced fearfully about him, and scuttled away.