all live to claim
yet, I do believe, and you to discharge it with great pleasure. For
that will not be until I bring you a son, not only acquitted, but also
guiltless; as I have good reason for believing him to be. But you do not
look well; let me call for something."

"No, thank you. It is nothing. I am quite well, but not quite seasoned
to my native climate yet. Tell me your reasons for believing that."

"I can not do that in a moment. You know what evidence is a hundred
times as well as I do. And in this cold room you must not stop. Sir
Duncan, I am not a coddler any more than you are. And I do not presume
to dictate to you. But I am as resolute a man as yourself. And I refuse
to go further with this subject, until you are thoroughly warmed and
refreshed."

"Mordacks, you shall have your way," said his visitor, after a
heavy frown, which produced no effect upon the factor. "You are as
kind-hearted as you are shrewd. Tell me once more what your conviction
is; and I will wait for your reasons, till--till you are ready."

"Then, sir, my settled conviction is that your son is purely innocent of
this crime, and that we shall be able to establish that."

"God bless you for thinking so, my dear friend. I can bear a great deal;
and I would do my duty. But I did love that boy's mother so."

The general factor always understood his business; and he knew that no
part of it compelled him now to keep watch upon the eyes of a stern,
proud man.

"Sir, I am your agent, and I magnify mine office," he said, as he took
up his hat to go forth. "One branch of my duty is to fettle your horse;
and in Flamborough they fettle them on stale fish." Mr. Mordacks strode
with a military tramp, and a loud shout for the landlord, who had
finished his joke by this time, and was paying the penalties of
reaction. "Gil Beilby, thoo'st nobbut a fondhead," he was saying to
himself. "Thoo mun hev thy lahtel jawk, thof it crack'th thy own pure
back." For he thought that he was driving two great customers away,
by the flashing independence of too brilliant a mind; and many clever
people of his native place had told him so. "Make a roaring fire in that
room," said Mordacks.

CHAPTER XLVI

STUMPED OUT

"I think, my dear, that you never should allow mysterious things to be
doing in your parish, and everybody full of curiosity about them, while
the only proper person to explain their meaning is allowed to remain
without any more knowledge tha