s whiskers with it,
"Better wait, and let him come round," thought Mary; "I never did
see him so put out." Then she ran up the stairs to the window on the
landing, and watched her dear father grow dimmer and dimmer up the
distance of the hill, with a bright young tear for every sad old step.

CHAPTER XXV

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD WEEDS

Can it be supposed that all this time Master Geoffrey Mordacks, of the
city of York, land agent, surveyor, and general factor, and maker and
doer of everything whether general or particular, was spending his days
in doing nothing, and his nights in dreaming? 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. At
first sight almost everybody said that he must have been a soldier, at a
time when soldiers were made of iron, whalebone, whip-cord, and ramrods.
Such opinions he rewarded with a grin, and shook his straight shoulders
straighter. If pride of any sort was not beneath him, as a matter of
strict business, it was the pride which he allowed his friends to take
in his military figure and aspect.

This gentleman's place of business was scarcely equal to the
expectations which might have been formed from a view of the owner. The
old King's Staith, on the right hand after crossing Ouse Bridge from
the Micklegate, is a passageway scarcely to be called a street, but
combining the features of an alley, a lane, a jetty, a quay, and a
barge-walk, and ending ignominiously. 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. Geoffrey Mordacks
had nothing on his mind except other people's business; which (as in
the case of Lawyer Jellicorse) is a very favorable state of the human
constitution for happiness.

But though Mr. Mordacks attended so to other people's business, he would
not have anybody to attend to his. No partner, no clerk, no pupil, had
a hand in the inner breast pockets of his business; there was nothing
mysterious about his work, but he liked to follow it out alone. Things
that were h