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"Upon my word I do believe," cried Mordacks, with a sprightly joy, "that I have the pleasure of meeting at last the well-known Captain Anerley! My dear sir, I can not help commending your prudence in guarding the entrance to your manor; but not in this employment of a bill-hook. From all that I hear, it is a Paradise indeed. What a haven in such weather as the present!
This was not Master Anerley's general style of welcoming a guest, but he hated new-fangled Frenchified manners, as he told his good wife, when he boasted by-and-by how finely he had put that old coxcomb down. "You never should have done it," was all the praise he got. "Mr. Mordacks is a business man, and business men always must relieve their minds."
But only certain tides will serve, even with the best of weather; and there may be no such tide for months I mean tide, weather, and clear water combined, as they must be for the job. Therefore I am not to wait, but go about my other business, and leave this to Mordacks, who loves to be captain of everything. Mr.
Mordacks had to cope with his own kin, and found the conflict so severe that not a breath of time was left him for anybody's business but his own. No crisis arose to demand his presence; no business went amiss because of his having to work so hard at love.
His rider said nothing, but kept a sharp look-out. Now this was Master Geoffrey Mordacks, of the ancient city of York, a general factor and land agent. What a "general factor" is, or is not, none but himself can pretend to say, even in these days of definition, and far less in times when thought was loose; and perhaps Mr. Mordacks would rather have it so.
Old Joe pulled rather the better oar, and called his son "a one-legged fiddler" when he missed the dip of wave; while Mordacks stood with his leg's apart, and playing the easy part of critic, had his sneers at both of them. But they let him gibe to his liking; because they knew their work, and he did not. And, upon the whole, they went merrily.
I might have a hatful of money if I chose, but I find myself better without it, and my constitution braces up. If I only chose to walk a league sou'west, there would be bonfires burning. But I vowed I would go home a captain, and I will." "Ha!" cried Mr. Mordacks, with his usual quickness, and now knowing all about everybody; "you are Mr. John Anerley, the son of the famous Captain Anerley."
Refreshed and recruited by the home campaign, and having now a double base for future operations York city with the fosse of Ouse in the east, and Pretorian Hill, Derbyshire, westward Mordacks returned, with a smack of lip more dry than amontilladissimo, to the strict embrace of business.
A Yorkshireman might have answered this complaint, if he thought it deserving of an answer, by requesting Master Mordacks not to be so overquick, but to bide a wee bit longer before he made so sure of the vast superiority of his own wit, for the long heads might prove better than the sharp ones in the end of it.
Nevertheless, it is a lively place sometimes, and in moments of excitement. Also it is a good place for business, and for brogue of the broadest; and a man who is unable to be happy there, must have something on his mind unusual. But though Mr. Mordacks attended so to other people's business, he would not have anybody to attend to his.
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