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 accordin', 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. CHAPTER XLIX. "IF AUGHT'S FOR ME, REMEMBER IT." Before he left the house at night, Murdoch had a brief interview with his mother. "I am going to London as _he_ went," he said,--"on the same errand. The end may be what it was before. I have felt very sure--but he was sure too." "Yes," the woman answered, "he was very sure." "I don't ask you to trust it--or me," he said. "He gave a life to it. I have not given a year, and he was the better man, a thousand-fold. I," he said, with a shadow falling on his face, "have not proved myself as he did. He never faltered from the first." "No," she said. "Would to God he had!" But when he went, she followed him to the door and said the words she had refused him when he had first told her he had taken the burden upon his shoulders. "God speed you!" she said. "I will try to believe." His plan was to go to his room, pack his case securely, and then carry it with him to the station in time to meet the late train he had decided on taking.