THIRTY YEARS.
A little later there stood at a window, in one of the cheapest of the
respectable streets, a woman whom the neighbors had become used to
seeing there. She was a small person, with a repressed and watchful look
in her eyes, and she was noticeable, also, to the Lancashire mind, for a
certain slightly foreign air, not easily described. It was in
consequence of inquiries made concerning this foreign air, that the
rumor had arisen that she was a "'Merican," and it was possibly a result
of this rumor that she was regarded by the inhabitants of the street
with a curiosity not unmingled with awe.
"Aye," said one honest matron. "Hoo's a 'Merican, fur my mester heerd it
fro' th' landlord. Eh! I would like to ax her summat about th' Blacks
an' th' Indians."
But it was not easy to attain the degree of familiarity warranting the
broaching of subjects so delicate and truly "'Merican." The stranger and
her husband lived a simple and secluded life. It was said the woman had
never been known to go out; it seemed her place to stand or sit at the
window and watch for the man when he left the house on one of his
mysterious errands in company with the wooden case he carried by its
iron handle.
This morning she waited as usual, though the case had not gone
out,--rather to the disappointment of those interested, whose
conjectures concerning its contents were varied and ingenious. When, at
last, the tall, stooping figure turned the corner, she went to the door
and stood in readiness to greet its crossing the threshold.
Stephen Murdoch looked down at her with a kindly, absent smile.
"Thank you, Kitty," he said. "You are always here, my dear."
There was a narrow, hard, horse-hair sofa in the small room into which
they passed, and he went to it and lay down upon it, panting a little in
an exhausted way, a hectic red showing itself on his hollow cheeks.
"Everything is ready, Kitty?" he said at last.
"Yes, all ready."
He lay and looked at the fire, still breathing shortly.
"I never was as certain of it before," he said. "I have thought I was
certain, but--I never felt as I do now. And yet--I don't know what made
me do it--I went into Haworth's this morning and asked for--for work."
His wife dropped the needle she was holding.
"For work!" she said.
"Yes--yes," a little hastily. "I was there and saw Haworth at a window,
and there have been delays so often that it struck me I might as
well--not exactly depend on it----" He broke off and buried his face in
his hands. "What am I saying?" he cried. "It sounds as if I did not
believe in it."
His wife drew her chair nearer to him. She was used to the task of
consoling him; it had become a habit. She spoke in an even, unemotional
voice.
"When Hilary comes----" she began.
"It will be all over then," he said, "one way or the other. He will be
here when I come back."
"Yes."
"I may have good news for him," he said. "I don't see"--faltering
afresh--"how it can be otherwise. Only I am so used to discouragement
that--that I can't see the thing fairly. It has been--a long time,
Kitty."
"This man in London," she said, "can tell you the actual truth about
it?"
"He is the first mechanic and inventor in England," he answered, his eye
sparkling feverishly. "He is a genius. If he says it is a success, it is
one."
The woman rose, and going to the fire bent down to stir it. She lingered
over it for a moment or so before she came back.
"When the lad comes," he was saying, as if to himself, "we shall have
news for him."
Thirty years before, he had reached America, a gentle, unpractical
Lancashire man, with a frail physique and empty pockets. He had belonged
in his own land to the better class of mechanics; he had a knack of
invention which somehow had never as yet brought forth any decided
results. He had done one or two things which had gained him the
reputation among his employers of being "a clever fellow," but they had
always been things which had finally slipped into stronger or shrewder
hands, and left his own empty. But at last there had come to him what
seemed a new and wonderful thought. He had labored with it in secret, he
had lain awake through long nights brooding over it in the darkness.
And then some one had said to him:
"Why don't you try America? America's the place for a thinking,
inventing chap like you. It's fellows like you who are appreciated in a
new country. Capitalists are not so slow in America. Why don't you
carry your traps out there?"
It was more a suggestion of boisterous good-fellowship than anything
else, but it awakened new fancies in Stephen Murdoch's mind. He had
always cherished vaguely grand visions of the New World, and they were
easily excited.
"I only wonder I never thought of it," he said to himself.
He landed on the strange shore with high hopes in his breast, and a
little unperfected model in his shabby trunk.
This was thirty years ago, and to-day he was in Lancashire again, in his
native town, with the same little model among his belongings.
During the thirty years' interval he had lived an unsettled,
unsuccessful life. He had labored faithfully at his task, but he had not
reached the end which had been his aim. Sometimes he had seemed very
near it, but it had always evaded him. He had drifted here and there
bearing his work with him, earning a scant livelihood by doing anything
chance threw in his way. It had always been a scant livelihood,--though
after the lapse of eight years, in one of his intervals of hopefulness,
he had married. On the first night they spent in their new home he had
taken his wife into a little bare room, set apart from the rest, and had
shown her his model.
"I think a few weeks will finish it," he said.
The earliest recollections of their one child centered themselves round
the small room and its contents. It was the one touch of romance and
mystery in their narrow, simple life. The few spare hours the struggle
for daily bread left the man were spent there; sometimes he even stole
hours from the night, and yet the end was always one step further. His
frail body grew frailer, his gentle temperament more excitable, he was
feverishly confident and utterly despairing by turns. It was in one of
his hours of elation that his mind turned again to his old home. He was
sure at last that a few days' work would complete all, and then only
friends were needed.
"England is the place, after all," he said. "They are more steady there,
even if they are not so sanguine,--and there are men in Lancashire I can
rely upon. We'll try Old England once again."
The little money hard labor and scant living had laid away for an hour
of need, they brought with them. Their son had remained to dispose of
their few possessions. Between this son and the father there existed a
strong affection, and Stephen Murdoch had done his best by him.
"I should like the lad," he used to say, "to have a fairer chance than I
had. I want him to have what I have lacked."
As he lay upon the horse-hair sofa he spoke of him to his wife.
"There are not many like him," he said. "He'll make his way. I've
sometimes thought that may-be----" But he did not finish the sentence;
the words died away on his lips, and he lay--perhaps thinking over them
as he looked at the fire.