oke of the Thornwick Inn, even upon
her back premises, her dignity stepped in and said, "I can't abide the
stinkin' naam o' un."

Of this persistently noble regard of a lower institution Mr. Mordacks
was well aware; and it gave him pause, in his deep anxiety to spare a
tender heart, and maintain the high standard of his breakfast kidneys.
"Madam," he began, and then he rubbed his mouth with the cross-cut out
of the jack-towel by the sink, newly set on table, to satisfy him for a
dinner napkin--"madam, will you listen, while I make an explanation?"

The landlady looked at him with dark suspicions gathering.

"Joost spak' oot," she said, "whativer's woorkin' i' thah mahnd."

"I am bound to meet a gentleman near Flamborough to-morrow," Mr.
Mordacks continued, with the effrontery of guilt, "who will come
from the sea. And as it would not suit him to walk far inland, he has
arranged for the interview at a poor little place called the Thorny
Wick, or the Stubby Wick, or something of that sort. I thought it was
due to you, madam, to explain the reason of my entering, even for a
moment--"

"Ah dawn't care. Sitha--they mah fettle thee there, if thow's fondhead
enew."

Without another word she left the room, clattering her heavy shoes at
the door; and Mordacks foresaw a sad encounter on the morrow, without a
good breakfast to "fettle" him for it. It was not in his nature to dread
anything much, and he could not see where he had been at all to blame;
but gladly would he have taken ten per cent off his old contract, than
meet Sir Duncan Yordas with the news he had to tell him.

One cause of the righteous indignation felt by the good mother Tapsy,
was her knowledge that nobody could land just now in any cove under the
Thornwick Hotel. With the turbulent snow-wind bringing in the sea, as
now it had been doing for several days, even the fishermen's cobles
could not take the beach, much less any stranger craft. Mr. Mordacks was
sharp; but an inland factor is apt to overlook such little facts marine.

Upon the following day he stood in the best room of the Thornwick
Inn--which even then was a very decent place to any eyes uncast with
envy--and he saw the long billows of the ocean rolling before the steady
blowing of the salt-tongued wind, and the broad white valleys that
between them lay, and the vaporous generation of great waves. They
seemed to have little gift of power for themselves, and no sign of any
heed of purport; only