Chapter 48

SHORT SIGHS, AND LONG ONES

Now it came to pass that for several months this neighborhood, which had begun to regard Mr. Mordacks as its tutelary genius--so great is the power of bold energy--lost him altogether; and with brief lamentation began to do very well without him. So fugitive is vivacious stir, and so well content is the general world to jog along in its old ruts. The Flamborough butcher once more subsided into a piscitarian; the postman, who had been driven off his legs, had time to nurse his grain again; Widow Tapsy relapsed into the very worst of taps, having none to demand good beverage; and a new rat, sevenfold worse than the mighty net-devourer (whom Mordacks slew; but the chronicle has been cut out, for the sake of brevity), took possession of his galleries, and made them pay. All Flamborough yearned for the "gentleman as did things," itself being rather of the contemplative vein, which flows from 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