to keep at proper distance from each other, and
threaten to break over long before they meant to do it. But to see what
they did at the first opposition of reef, or crag, or headland bluff,
was a cure for any delusion about them, or faith in their liquid
benevolence. For spouts of wild fury dashed up into the clouds; and the
shore, wherever any sight of it was left, weltered in a sadly frothsome
state, like the chin of a Titan with a lather-brush at work.

"Why, bless my heart!" cried the keen-eyed Mordacks; "this is a check I
never thought of. Nobody could land in such a surf as that, even if he
had conquered all India. Landlord, do you mean to tell me any one could
land? And if not, what's the use of your inn standing here?"

"Naw, sir, nawbody cud laun' joost neaw. Lee-ast waas, nut to ca' fur
naw yell to dry hissen."

The landlord was pleased with his own wit--perhaps by reason of its
scarcity--and went out to tell it in the tap-room while fresh; and
Mordacks had made up his mind to call for something--for the good of
the house and himself--and return with a sense of escape to his own
inn, when the rough frozen road rang with vehement iron, and a horse was
pulled up, and a man strode in. The landlord having told his own joke
three times, came out with the taste of it upon his lips; but the stern
dark eyes looking down into his turned his smile into a frightened
stare. He had so much to think of that he could not speak--which happens
not only at Flamborough--but his visitor did not wait for the solution
of his mental stutter. Without any rudeness he passed the mooning host,
and walked into the parlor, where he hoped to find two persons.

Instead of two, he found one only, and that one standing with his back
to the door, and by the snow-flecked window, intent upon the drizzly
distance of the wind-struck sea. The attitude and fixed regard were so
unlike the usual vivacity of Mordacks, that the visitor thought there
must be some mistake, till the other turned round and looked at him.

"You see a defeated but not a beaten man," said the factor, to get
through the worst of it. "Thank you, Sir Duncan, I will not shake hands.
My ambition was to do so, and to put into yours another hand, more near
and dear to it. Sir, I have failed. It is open to you to call me by
any hard name that may occur to you. That will do you good, be a hearty
relief, and restore me rapidly to self-respect, by arousing my anxiety
to vindicate my