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It was about an hour before noon of a beautifully soft September day, when little Sam Precious, the same boy that carried Robin Lyth's note to Mary, came up to Mr. Mordacks with a bit of plaited rushes, the scytale of Nicholas the fish, who was happy enough not to know his alphabet.
"You have done wisely and well in coming here," said Mr, Mordacks, cheerfully; "but we must have further particulars, my friend. You seem to have hit upon the clew I wanted, but it must be followed very cautiously. You know where to lay your hand upon this villain? You have had the sense not to scare him off?" "Sarten, your honor. I could clap the irons on him any hour you gives that signal."
"You see, sir," quoth the farmer, with some severity, tempered, however, with a smile of pride, "my daughter, Mary Anerley." "And I take off my hat," replied audacious Mordacks, among whose faults was no false shame, "not only to salute a lady, sir, but also to have a better look."
Geoffrey Mordacks well knew this, and did not neglect his knowledge. The brown walnut stock of a heavy pistol shone above either holster, and a cavalry sword in a leathern scabbard hung within easy reach of hand. Altogether this gentleman seemed not one to be rashly attacked by daylight. No man had ever dreamed as yet of coming to this outlandish place for pleasure of the prospect.
"Well, I can understand a thing like that," Mordacks answered, graciously; "my water-butt leaked for three weeks, pat, pat, all night long upon a piece of slate, and when a man came and caulked it up, I put all the blame upon the pillow; but the pillow was as good as ever. Not a wink could I sleep till it began to leak again; and you may trust a York workman that it wasn't very long.
But he hopes to be at work again on Wednesday, and we will have him here post-haste from York on Thursday. It will be the very job to suit him a gentleman of Roman ancestry, and of the name of Mordacks." "My heart was broken already; and now I can feel the poor pieces flying into my brain. Oh, why did I ever have a babe for monsters of the name of Mordacks to devour?"
And then, again, what did the milkman from Sewerby mean by the way he shook his head this morning, about something in the family at Anerley Farm? And what did that most unaccountable man, who calls himself Mr. Mordacks though I don't believe that is his name at all " "Yes, it is, my dear; you never should say such things.
Now here, upon a very sad November afternoon, when the Northern day was narrowing in; and the Ouse, which is usually of a ginger-color, was nearly as dark as a nutmeg; and the bridge, and the staith, and the houses, and the people, resembled one another in tint and tone; while between the Minster and the Clifford Tower there was not much difference of outline here and now Master Geoffrey Mordacks was sitting in the little room where strangers were received.
Mordacks in the highest legal circles, at Proctor Brigant's, in Crypt Court, York, he acknowledged that he never met a more delightful gentleman, until he found out what his name was. And even then he offered him a pinch of snuff, and they shook hands very warmly without anything to pay.
If so, he must have had a sunstroke on that very bright day of the year when he stirred up the minds of the washer-women, and the tongue of Widow Precious. But Flamborough is not at all the place for sunstroke, although it reflects so much in whitewash; neither had Mordacks the head to be sunstruck, but a hard, impenetrable, wiry poll, as weather-proof as felt asphalted.
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