It would be a very strange thing just now if news were to come from Flamborough; but the stranger a thing is, the more it can be trusted, as often is the case with human beings.

Whoever it is, show them up at once," he shouted down the narrow stairs; for no small noise was arising in the passage.
"A' canna coom oop.

I wand a' canna," was the answer in Kitty's well-known brogue; "how can a', when a' hanna got naa legs ?" "Oh ho! I see," said Mr.Mordacks to himself; "my veteran friend from the watch-tower, doubtless.

A man with no legs would not have come so far for nothing.

Show the gentleman into the parlor, Kitty; and Miss Arabella may bring her work up here." The general factor, though eager for the news, knew better than to show any haste about it; so he kept the old mariner just long enough in waiting to damp a too covetous ardor, and then he complacently locked Arabella in her bedroom, and bolted off Kitty in the basement; because they both were sadly inquisitive, and this strange arrival had excited them.
"Ah, mine ancient friend of the tower! Veteran Joseph, if my memory is right," Mr.Mordacks exclaimed, in his lively way, as he went up and offered the old tar both hands, to seat him in state upon the sofa; but the legless sailor condemned "them swabs," and crutched himself into a hard-bottomed chair.