You look sad,' proceeded Mr. Mordacks.

It grieves me when any good man looks sad; and doubly so when a brace of them do it. Explain your feelings, Joe and Bob; if it lies in a human being to relieve them, I will do it.'

Captain, we only wants what is our due,' said Bob, with his chin up, and his strong eyes stern. We have been on the loose; and it is the manner of us, and encouraged by the high authorities. We have come across, by the luck of drink, a thing as seems to suit you; and we have told you all our knowledge, without no conditions. If you take us for a pair of fools, and want no more of us, you are welcome, and it will be what we are used to; but if your meaning is to use us, we must have fair wages; and even so, we would have nought to do with it, if it was against an honest man; but a rogue who has scuttled a ship-lor, there!'

Bob cast out the juice of his chew into the fire, as if it were the life blood of such a villain, and looked at his father, who expressed approval by the like proceeding. And Geoffrey Mordacks was well content at finding them made of decent stuff. It was not his manner to do things meanly; and he had only spoken so, to moderate their minds and keep them steady.

'Mariner Bob, you speak well and wisely,' he answered, with a superior smile. Your anxiety as to ways and means does credit to your intellect. That subject has received my consideration. I have studied the style of life at Flamborough, and the prices of provisions-would that such there were in York!-and to keep you in temperate and healthy comfort, without temptation, and with minds alert, I am determined to allow for the two of you, over and above all your present income from a grateful country (which pays a man less, when amputation has left less of him), the sum of one guinea and a half per week. But remember that, to draw this stipend, both of you must be in a condition to walk one mile and a half on a Saturday night; which is a test of character. You will both be fitted up with solid steel ends by the cutler at the end of Ouse bridge, to-morrow morning, so that the state of the roads will not affect you; and take note of one thing-mutual support (graceful though it always is in paternal and filial communion) will not be allowed on a Saturday night. Each man must stand on his own stumps.'

6

'Sir,' replied Bob, who had much education, which led him to a knowledge of his failings; never you fear but what we shall do it. Sunday will be the day of standing with a shake to it, for such is the habit of the navy. Father, return thanks; make a leg-no man can do it better. Master Mordacks, you shall have our utmost duty; but a little brass in hand would be convenient.'

'You shall have a fortnight in advance; after that you must go every Saturday night to a place I will appoint for you. Now, keep your own counsel; watch that fellow; by no means scare him at

think that you know nothing of his crime. Labour hard to make him drink again; then terrify him like Davy Jones himself, and get every particular out of him; especially how he himself escaped, where he landed, and who was with him. I want to learn all about a little boy (at least he may be a big man now), who was on board the ship "Golconda," under the captain's special charge. I cannot help thinking that the child escaped; and I got a little trace of something connected with him at Flamborough. I durst not make much inquiry there, because I am ordered to keep things quiet. Still I did enough to convince me almost, that my suspicion was an error; for Widow Precious

'Pay you no heed, sir, to any manoeuvring of Widow Precious. We find her no worse than the other women; but not a blamed bit better.'

"I think highly of the female race; at least, in comparison with the male one. I have always found reason to believe that a woman, put upon her mettle by a secret, will find it out, or perish.'

"Your honour, everybody knows as much as that; but it doth not follow that she tells it on again, without she was ordered not to do so.'

'Bob, you have not been round the world for nothing. I see my blot, and you have hit it; you deserve to know all about the matter now. Match me that button, and you shall have ten guineas.'

The two sailors stared at the bead of Indian gold, which Mordacks pulled out of his pocket. Buttons are a subject for nautical contempt, and condemnation; perhaps because there is nobody to sew them on at sea; while ear-rings, being altogether useless, are held in good esteem and honour.

'I have seen a brace of ear-rings like it,' said old Joe, wading through deep thought. Bob, you knows who was a wearing of 'em.'

'A score of them fishermen, like enough,' cautious Bob answered; for he knew what his father meant, but would not speak of the great free-trader; for Master Mordacks might even be connected with the Revenue. What use to go on about such gear? His honour wanteth to hear of buttons-regulation buttons by the look of it, and good enough for Lord Nelson. Will you let us take the scantle, and the rig of it, your honour?'

"By all means if you can do so, my friend; but what have you to do it with?'

'Hold on a bit, sir, and you shall see.' With these words Bob clapped a piece of soft York bread into the hollow of his broad brown palm, moistened it with sugary dregs of ale, such as that good city loves, and, kneading it firmly with some rapid flits of thumb, tempered and enriched it nobly with the mellow juice of quid. Treated thus, it took consistence, plastic, docile, and reten

had passed, according to its fate, through a large number of unclean hands.

'Now the pattern, your honour,' said Bob, with a grin. I could do it from memory; but better from the thing.' He took the bauble, and set it on the foot of a rummer which stood on the table; and in half a minute he had the counterpart in size, shape, and line; but without the inscription. A sample of them in the hollow will do, and good enough for the nigger-body words-heathen writing to my mind.' With lofty British intolerance, he felt that it might be a sinful thing to make such marks; nevertheless he impressed one side, whereon the characters were boldest, into the corresponding groove of his paste model; then he scooped up the model on the broad blade of his knife, and set it in the oven of the little fireplace, in a part where the heat was moderate.

'Well done, indeed!' cried Mr. Mordacks; you will have a better likeness of it than good Mother Precious. Robert, I admire your ingenuity. But all sailors are ingenious.'

'At sea, in the trades, or in a calm, sir, what have we to do but to twiddle our thumbs, and practise fiddling with them? A lively tune is what I like, and a-serving of the guns red-hot; a man must act according to what nature puts upon him. And nature hath taken one of my legs from me, with a cannon-shot from the French line-of-battle ship—" Rights of Mankind” the name of her.'

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE PROPER WAY TO ARGUE.

ALAS, how seldom is anything done in proper time and season! Either too fast, or too slow, is the clock of all human dealings; and what is the law of them, when the sun (the regulator of works and ways) has to be allowed for very often, on his own meridian? With the best intention every man sets forth, to do his duty, and to talk of it; and he makes quite sure that he has done it, and to his privy circle boasts, or lets them do it better for him; but before his lips are dry, his ears apprise him that he was a stroke too late.

So happened it with Master Mordacks; who of all born men was foremost, with his wiry fingers spread, to pass them through the scattery forelock of that mettlesome horse, old Time. The old horse galloped by him unawares, and left him standing still, to hearken the swish of the tail, and the clatter of the hoofs, and the spirited nostrils neighing for a race, on the wide breezy down at the end of the lane. But Geoffrey Mordacks was not to blame. His instructions were to move slowly, until he was sure of something worth moving for. And of this he had no surety yet; and was only too likely to lose it altogether by any headlong action. Therefore, instead of making

quadruped who understood his character, content he was to advance deliberately upon one foot and three artificial legs.

Meanwhile, at Anerley Farm, the usual fatness of full garners, and bright comfort of the evening hearth, the glow of peace, which labour kindles in the mind that has earned its rest, and the pleasant laziness of heart, which comes where family love lies careless, confident, and unassailed-the pleasure also of pitying the people who never can get in their wheat, and the hot benevolence of boiling down the bones for the man who has tumbled off one's own rick-all these blisses, large and little, were not in their usual prime.

The master of the house was stern, and silent, heavy and careless of his customary victuals, neglectful also of his customary jokes. He disliked the worse side of a bargain as much as in his most happy moments; and the meditation (which is generally supposed to be going on where speech is scarce) was not of such loftiness as to overlook the time a man stopped round the corner. As a horse settles down to strong collar-work better, when the gloss of the stable takes the ruffle of the air; so this man worked at his business all the harder, with the brightness of the home joys fading. But it went very hard with him, more than once, when he made good stroke of salesmanship, to have to put the money in the bottom of his pocket, without even rubbing a bright half-crown, and saying to himself, I have a'most a mind to give this to Mary.'

Now if this settled and steadfast man (with three-quarters of his life gone over him, and less and less time every year for considering soft subjects), in spite of all that, was put out of his way by not being looked at as usual-though for that matter, perhaps, himself failed to look in search of those looks, as usual-what on the other hand was likely to remain of mirth, and light-heartedness, in a weaker quarter? Mary, who used to be as happy as a bird where worms abound and cats are scarce, was now in a grievous plight of mind, restless, lonely, troubled in her heart, and doubtful of her conscience. Her mother had certainly shown kind feeling, and even a readiness to take her part, which surprised the maiden after all her words; and once or twice they had had a cry together, clearing and strengthening their intellects desirably. For the more Mistress Anerley began to think about it, the more she was almost sure that something could be said on both sides. She never had altogether approved of the farmer's volunteering, which took him away to drill at places where ladies came to look at him; and where he slept out of his own bed, and got things to eat that she had never heard of; and he never was the better afterwards. If that was the thing which set his mind against free trade so bitterly, it went far to show that free trade was good, and it made all the difference of a blanket. And more than that, she had always said from the very first, and had even told the same thing to Captain Carroway, in spite of his position, that nobody knew what Robin Lyth might not turn out in the end to be. He had spoken most highly of her, as Mary had not feared to mention; and she felt obliged to him

were people who would not have done that, and it proved that he was a very promising young man.

Mary was pleased with this conclusion, and glad to have some one who did not condemn her; hopeful, moreover, that her mother's influence might have some effect by-and-by. But for the present it seemed to do more harm than good; because the farmer, having quite as much jealousy as justice, took it into silent dudgeon, that the mother of his daughter, who regularly used to be hard upon her for next to nothing, should now turn round and take her part, from downright womanism, in the teeth of all reason, and of her own husband! Brave as he was, he did not put it to his wife in so strong a way as that; but he argued it so to himself, and would let it fly forth, without thinking twice about it, if they went on so much longer, quite as if he were nobody, and they could do better without him. Little he knew, in this hurt state of mind-for which he should really have been too old-how the heart of his child was slow, and chill, stupid with the strangeness he had made, waiting for him to take the lead or open some door for entrance, and watching for the humours of the elder body; as the young of past generations did. And sometimes, faithful as she was to plighted truth and tenderness, one coaxing word would have brought her home to the arms that used to carry her.

But while such things were waiting to be done till they were thought of, the time for doing them went by; and to think of them was memory. Master Popplewell had told Captain Anerley continually what his opinions were; fairly giving him to know on each occasion that they were to be taken for what they were worth; that it did not follow from his own success in life, that he might not be mistaken now; and that he did not care a d-n, except for Christian feeling, whether any fool hearkened to him twice or not. He said that he never had been far out in any opinion he had formed in all his life; but none the more for that would he venture to foretell a thing with cross purposes about it. A man of sagacity and dealings with the world might happen to be right ninety-nine times in a hundred; and yet he might be wrong the other time. Therefore he would not give any opinion; except that everybody would be sorry by-and-by, when things were too late for mending.

To this the farmer listened with an air of wisdom, not put forward too severely because brother Popplewell had got a lot of money, and must behave handsomely when in a better world. The simplest way of treating him was just to let him talk-for it pleased him and could do no harm-and then to recover self-content by saying what a fool he was, when out of hearing. The tanner partly suspected this; and it put his nature upon edge; for he always drove his opinions in, as if they were so many tenpenny nails, which the other man must either clinch or strike back into his teeth outright. He would rather have that than flabby silence, as if he were nailing into dry

rot.