Read Ebook: Haworth's by Burnett Frances Hodgson

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Ebook has 3104 lines and 98698 words, and 63 pages

He rose from his chair and went to the window to look out, rather impelled by restlessness than any motive. The prospect, at least, could not have attracted him. The place was closed in by tall and dingy houses, whose slate roofs shone with the rain which drizzled down through the smoky air. The ugly yard was wet and had a deserted look; the only living object which caught his eye was the solitary figure of a man who stood waiting at the iron gates.

At the sight of this man, he started backward with an exclamation.

"The devil take the chap!" he said. "There he is again!"

He took a turn across the room, but he came back again and looked out once more, as if he found some irresistible fascination in the sight of the frail, shabbily clad figure.

"Yes," he said, "it's him, sure enough. I never saw another fellow with the same, done-for look. I wonder what he wants."

He went to the door and opening it spoke to a man who chanced to be passing.

"Floxham, come in here," he said. Floxham was a well-oiled and burly fellow, plainly fresh from the engine-room. He entered without ceremony, and followed his master to the window. Haworth pointed to the man at the gate.

"There's a chap," he said, "that I've been running up against, here and there, for the last two months. The fellow seems to spend his time wandering up and down the streets. I'm hanged if he don't make me think of a ghost. He goes against the grain with me, somehow. Do you know who he is, and what's up with him?"

Floxham glanced toward the gate-way, and then nodded his head dryly.

"Aye," he answered. "He's th' inventin' chap as has bin thirty year' at work at some contrapshun, an' hasn't browt it to a yed yet. He lives i' our street, an' me an' my missis hes been noticin' him fur a good bit. He'll noan finish th' thing he's at. He's on his last legs now. He took th' contrapshun to 'Merica thirty year' ago, when he first getten th' idea into his yed, an' he browt it back a bit sin' a'most i' the same fix he took it. Me an' my missis think he's a bit soft i' the yed."

Haworth pushed by him to get nearer the window. A slight moisture started out upon his forehead.

There might have been something in his excitement which had its effect upon the man who stood outside. He seemed, as it were, to awaken slowly from a fit of lethargy. He glanced up at the window, and moved slowly forward.

"He's made up his mind to come in," said Floxham.

"What does he want?" said Haworth, with a sense of physical uneasiness. "Confound the fellow!" trying to shake off the feeling with a laugh. "What does he want with me--to-day?"

"I can go out an' turn him back," said Floxham.

"No," answered Haworth. "You can go back to your work. I'll hear what he has to say. I've naught else to do just now."

Floxham left him, and he went back to the big armchair behind the table. He sat down, and turned over some papers, not rid of his uneasiness even when the door opened, and his visitor came in. He was a tall, slender man who stooped and was narrow-chested. He was gray, hollow-eyed and haggard. He removed his shabby hat and stood before the table a second, in silence.

"Mr. Haworth?" he said, in a gentle, absent-minded voice. "They told me this was Mr. Haworth's room."

"Yes," he answered, "I'm Haworth."

"I want--" a little hoarsely, and faltering--"to get some work to do. My name is Murdoch. I've spent the last thirty years in America, but I'm a Lancashire man. I went to America on business--which has not been successful--yet. I--I have worked here before,"--with a glance around him,--"and I should like to work here again. I did not think it would be necessary, but--that doesn't matter. Perhaps it will only be temporary. I must get work."

In the last sentence his voice faltered more than ever. He seemed suddenly to awaken and bring himself back to his first idea, as if he had not intended to wander from it.

"I--I must get work," he repeated.

The effect he produced upon the man he appealed to was peculiar. Jem Haworth almost resented his frail appearance. He felt it an uncomfortable thing to confront just at this hour of his triumph. He had experienced the same sensation, in a less degree, when he rose in the morning and looked out of his window upon murky sky and falling rain. He would almost have given a thousand pounds for clear, triumphant sunshine.

And yet, in spite of this, he was not quite as brusque as usual when he made his answer.

"I've heard of you," he said. "You've had ill luck."

Stephen Murdoch shifted his hat from hand to hand.

Haworth made a rough gesture.

Murdoch fell back a pace, and stared at him in a stunned way.

"Given it up!" he repeated. "Yet?"

Haworth dashed off a couple of lines on a slip of paper, and tossed it to him.

"Take that to Greyson," he said, "and you'll get your work, and if you have anything to complain of, come to me."

Murdoch took the paper, and held it hesitatingly.

"I--perhaps I ought not to have asked for it to-day," he said, nervously. "I'm not a business man, and I didn't think of it. I came in because I saw you. I'm going to London to-morrow, and shall not be back for a week."

"That's all right," said Haworth. "Come then."

He was not sorry to see his visitor turn away, after uttering a few simple words of thanks. It would be a relief to see the door close after him. But when it had closed, to his discomfiture it opened again. The thin, poorly clad figure reappeared.

"I heard in the town," said the man, his cheek flushing faintly, "of what has happened here to-day. Twenty years have brought you better luck than thirty have brought me."

"Yes," answered Haworth, "my luck's been good enough, as luck goes."

The door closed, and he was gone.

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.

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