ing his
squeaks with another turn of the screw, and as eager to crack him as if
he were a nut, the first that turns auburn in September.

This being the condition of so powerful a mind, facts very speedily
shaped themselves thereto, as they do when the power of an eminent
orator lays hold of them and crushes them, and they can not even squeak.
Or even as a still more eminent 'bus driver, when the street is blocked,
and there seems to be no room for his own thumb, yet (with a gentle
whistle and a wink) solves the jostling stir and balk, makes obstructive
traffic slide, like an eddy obsequious, beside him and behind, and comes
forth as the first of an orderly procession toward the public-house of
his true love.

Now if anything beyond his own conviction were wanted to set this great
agent upon action, soon it was found in York Summer Assizes, and
the sudden inrush of evidence, which--no matter how a case has been
prepared--gets pent up always for the Bar and Bench. Then Robin Lyth
came, with a gallant dash, and offered himself as a sacrifice, if
needful, which proved both his courage and his common-sense in waiting
till due occasion demanded him. Mordacks was charmed with this
young man, not only for proving his own judgment right, but also for
possessing a quickness of decision akin to his own, and backing up his
own ideas.

With vigor thus renewed by many interests and motives, the general
and generous factor kept his appointment in Bempton Warren. Since the
distressing, but upon the whole desirable, decease of that poor Rickon
Goold, the lonely hut in which he breathed his last had not been by any
means a popular resort. There were said to be things heard, seen, and
felt, even in the brightest summer day, which commended the spot to the
creatures that fear mankind, but not their spectres. The very last of
all to approach it now would have been the two rollicking tars who
had trodden their wooden-legged watch around it. Nicholas the fish was
superstitious also, as it behooved him well to be; but having heard
nothing of the story of the place, and perceiving no gnats in the
neighborhood, he thankfully took it for his short dry spells.

Mr. Mordacks met him, and the two men were deeply impressed with
one another. The diver admired the sharp, terse style and definite
expression of the factor, while the factor enjoyed the large ponderous
roll and suggestive reservations of the diver. For this was a man who
had met grea