immemorial converse with the sea. But the man of dry hand-and-heel
activity came not, and the lanes forgot the echo of his Roman march.

The postman (with a wicked endeavor of hope to beget faith from sweet
laziness) propagated a loose report that Death had claimed the general
factor, through fear of any rival in activity. The postman did not put
it so, because his education was too good for long words to enter
into it; but he put his meaning in a shorter form than a smattering of
distant tongues leaves to us. The butcher (having doubt of death, unless
by man administered) kicked the postman out of his expiring shop, where
large hooks now had no sheep for bait; and Widow Tapsy, filled with
softer liquid form of memory, was so upset by the letter-man's tale that
she let off a man who owed four gallons, for beating him as flat as his
own bag. To tell of these things may take time, but time is thoroughly
well spent if it contributes a trifle toward some tendency, on anybody's
part, to hope that there used to be, even in this century, such a thing
as gratitude.

But why did Mr. Mordacks thus desert his favorite quest and quarters,
and the folk in whom he took most delight--because so long inaccessible?
The reason was as sound as need be: important business of his own had
called him away into Derbyshire. Like every true son of stone and crag,
he required an annual scratch against them, and hoped to rest among them
when the itch of life was over. But now he had hopes of even more than
that--of owning a good house and fair estate, and henceforth exerting
his remarkable powers of agency on his own behalf. For his cousin,
Calpurnius Mordacks, the head of the family, was badly ailing, and
having lost his only son in the West Indies, had sent for this kinsman
to settle matters with him. His offer was generous and noble; to wit,
that Geoffrey should take, not the property alone, but also his second
cousin, fair Calpurnia, though not without her full consent. Without
the lady, he was not to have the land, and the lady's consent must be
secured before her father ceased to be a sound testator.

Now if Calpurnia had been kept in ignorance of this arrangement, a man
possessing the figure, decision, stature, self-confidence, and other
high attributes of our Mordacks, must have triumphed in a week at
latest. But with that candor which appears to have been so strictly
entailed in the family, Colonel Calpurnius called them in; and there (i