“A warm room, good victuals, and cheerful society—these three are indispensable,” said Dr. Stirbacks to Mr. Mordacks, over whom he began to try to tyrannize; “and admirable as you are, my good sir, I fear that your society is depressing. You are always in a fume to be doing something—a stew, I might say, without exaggeration—a wonderful pattern of an active mind. But in a case of illness we require the passive voice. Everything suggestive of rapid motion must be removed, and never spoken of. You are rapid motion itself, my dear sir. We get a relapse every time you come in.”
“You want me out of the way. Very well. Let me know when you have killed my friend. I suppose your office ends with that. I will come down and see to his funeral.”
“Mr. Mordacks, you may be premature in such prevision. Your own may come first, sir. Look well at your eyes the next time you shave, and I fear you will descry those radiant fibres in the iris which always co-exist with heart-disease. I can tell you fifty cases, if you have time to listen.”
“D—n your prognostics, sir!” exclaimed the factor, rudely; but he seldom lathered himself thenceforth without a little sigh of self-regard. “Now, Dr. Stirbacks,” he continued, with a rally, “you may find my society depressing, but it is generally considered to be elevating; and that, sir, by judges of the highest order, and men of independent income. The head of your profession in the northern half of England, who takes a hundred guineas for every one you take, rejoices, sir—rejoices is not too strong a word to use—in my very humble society. Of course he may be wrong; but when he hears that Mr. Stirbacks, of Little Under-Bempton—is that the right address, sir?—speaks of my society as depressing—”
“Mr. Mordacks, you misunderstood my meaning. I spoke with no reference to you whatever, but of all male society as enervating—if you dislike the word 'depressing'—relaxing, emollient, emasculating, from want of contradictory element; while I was proceeding to describe the need of strictly female society. The rector offers this; he was here just now. His admiration for you is unbounded. He desires to receive our distinguished patient, with the vast advantage of ladies' society, double-thick walls, and a southern aspect, if you should consider it advisable.”
“Undoubtedly I do. If the moving can be done without danger; and of that you are the proper judge, of course.”
Thus they composed their little disagreement, with mutual respect, and some approaches to good-will; and Sir Duncan Yordas, being skillfully removed, spent his Christmas (without knowing much about it) in the best and warmest bedroom in the rectory. But Mordacks returned, as an honest man should do, to put the laurel and the mistletoe on his proper household gods. And where can this be better done than in that grand old city, York? But before leaving Flamborough, he settled the claims of business and charity, so far as he could see them, and so far as the state of things permitted.
Foiled as he was in his main object by the murder of the revenue officer, and the consequent flight of Robin Lyth, he had thoroughly accomplished one part of his task, the discovery of the Golconda's fate, and the history of Sir Duncan's child. Moreover, his trusty agents, Joe of the Monument, and Bob his son, had relieved him of one thorny care, by the zeal and skill with which they worked. It was to them a sweet instruction to watch, encounter, and drink down a rogue who had scuttled a ship, and even defeated them at their own weapons, and made a text of them to teach mankind. Dr. Upround had not exaggerated the ardor with which they discharged their duty.
But Mordacks still had one rogue on hand, and a deeper one than Rickon Goold. In the course of his visits to Bridlington Quay, he had managed to meet John Cadman, preferring, as he always did, his own impressions to almost any other evidence. And his own impressions had entirely borne out the conviction of Widow Carroway. But he saw at once that this man could not be plied with coarse weapons, like the other worn-out villain. He reserved him as a choice bit for his own skill, and was careful not to alarm him yet. Only two things concerned him, as immediate in the matter—to provide against Cadman's departure from the scene, and to learn all the widow had to tell about him.
The widow had a great deal to say about that man; but had not said it yet, from want of power so to do. Mordacks himself had often stopped her, when she could scarcely stop herself; for until her health should be set up again, any stir of the mind would be dangerous. But now, with the many things provided for her, good nursing, and company, and the kindness of the neighbors (who jealously rushed in as soon as a stranger led the way), and the sickening of Tommy with the measles—which he had caught in the coal-cellar—she began to be started in a different plane of life; to contemplate the past as a golden age (enshrining a diamond statue of a revenue officer in full uniform), and to look upon the present as a period of steel, when a keen edge must be kept against the world, for a defense of all the little seed of diamonds.