yed by me a
matter of seven years. I carried a light stock in those days."

It was no longer a light stock. The two men involuntarily glanced round
them for the satisfaction of the contrast Murchison evoked, though
neither of them, from motives of vague delicacy, felt inclined to dwell
upon it. John Murchison had the shyness of an artist in his commercial
success, and the minister possibly felt that his relation toward
the prosperity of a member had in some degree the embarrassment of a
tax-gatherer's. The stock was indeed heavy now. You had to go upstairs
to see the ranges, where they stood in rows, and every one of them
bore somewhere upon it, in raised black letters, John Murchison's name.
Through the windows came the iterating ring on the iron from the foundry
in Chestnut Street which fed the shop, with an overflow that found its
way from one end of the country to the other. Finicking visitors to
Elgin found this wearing, but to John Murchison it was the music that
honours the conqueror of circumstances. The ground floor was given up
to the small wares of the business, chiefly imported; two or three
young men, steady and knowledgeable-looking, moved about in their shirt
sleeves among shelves and packing-cases. One of them was our friend
Alec; our other friend Oliver looked after the books at the foundry.
Their father did everything deliberately; but presently, in his own good
time, his commercial letter paper would be headed, with regard to these
two, "John Murchison and Sons." It had long announced that the business
was "Wholesale and Retail."

Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison, considering the changes in Elgin from the
store door, did it at their leisure, the merchant with his thumbs thrust
comfortably in the armholes of his waistcoat, the minister, with that
familiar trick of his, balancing on one foot and suddenly throwing his
slight weight forward on the other. "A bundle of nerves," people called
the Doctor: to stand still would have been a penance to him; even as
he swayed backward and forward in talking, his hand must be busy at the
seals on his watch chain and his shrewd glance travelling over a dozen
things you would never dream so clever a man would take notice of. It
was a prospect of moderate commercial activity they looked out upon,
a street of mellow shopfronts on both sides, of varying height and
importance, wearing that air of marking a period, a definite stop
in growth, that so often coexists with quite