Our Mutual Friend
for a glass or so now and then. Else why have to do with you at all? But
when you copied my clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, and
when you shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wot
I’ll be paid for and paid heavy for. If it come to be throw’d upon you,
you was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you? Where else but
in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a man dressed according as
described? Where else but in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a
man as had had words with him coming through in his boat? Look at the
Lock-keeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answering clothes
and with that same answering red neckhankercher, and see whether his
clothes happens to be bloody or not. Yes, they do happen to be bloody.
Ah, you sly devil!’
Bradley, very white, sat looking at him in silence.
‘But two could play at your game,’ said Riderhood, snapping his fingers
at him half a dozen times, ‘and I played it long ago; long afore you
tried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you hadn’t begun croaking
your lecters or what not in your school. I know to a figure how you
done it. Where you stole away, I could steal away arter you, and do it
knowinger than you. I know how you come away from London in your own
clothes, and where you changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see
you with my own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-place
among them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account for
your dressing yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise up
Bradley Headstone, Master, where you sat down Bargeman. I see you pitch
your Bargeman’s bundle into the river. I hooked your Bargeman’s bundle
out of the river. I’ve got your Bargeman’s clothes, tore this way and
that way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and spattered
all over with what bust from the blows. I’ve got them, and I’ve got you.
I don’t care a curse for the T’other governor, alive or dead, but I care
a many curses for my own self. And as you laid your plots agin me and
was a sly devil agin me, I’ll be paid for it—I’ll be paid for it—I’ll
be paid for it—till I’ve drained you dry!’
Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a
while. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure of
voice and feature:
‘You can’t get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.’
‘I can get money out of a schoolmaster though.’
‘You can’t get out of me what is not in me. You can’t wrest from me what
I have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than two
guineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing
for a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?’
‘I don’t know, nor I don’t care. Yours is a ’spectable calling. To
save your ’spectability, it’s worth your while to pawn every article of
clothes you’ve got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow
every penny you can get trusted with. When you’ve done that and handed
over, I’ll leave you. Not afore.’
‘How do you mean, you’ll leave me?’
‘I mean as I’ll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away from
here. Let the Lock take care of itself. I’ll take care of you, once I’ve
got you.’
Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up
his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned his
elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire
with a most intent abstraction.
‘Riderhood,’ he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long
silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. ‘Say
I part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have
my watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you a
certain portion of it.’
‘Say nothink of the sort,’ retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as he
smoked. ‘You’ve got away once, and I won’t run the chance agin. I’ve had
trouble enough to find you, and shouldn’t have found you, if I hadn’t
seen you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till you
was safe housed. I’ll have one settlement with you for good and all.’
‘Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I have no resources
beyond myself. I have absolutely no friends.’
‘That’s a lie,’ said Riderhood. ‘You’ve got one friend as I knows of;
one as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I’m a blue monkey!’
Bradley’s face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse and
drew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go on to
say.
‘I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday,’ said Riderhood.
‘Found myself among the young ladies, by George! Over the young ladies,
I see a Missis. That Missis is sweet enough upon you, Master, to sell
herself up, slap, to get you out of trouble. Make her do it then.’
Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite knowing
how to take it, affected to be occupied with the encircling smoke from
his pipe; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing it off.
‘You spoke to the mistress, did you?’ inquired Bradley, with that
former composure of voice and feature that seemed inconsistent, and with
averted eyes.
‘Poof! Yes,’ said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention from the smoke.
‘I spoke to her. I didn’t say much to her. She was put in a fluster by
my dropping in among the young ladies (I never did set up for a lady’s
man), and she took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothink
wrong. I tells her, “O no, nothink wrong. The master’s my wery good
friend.” But I see how the land laid, and that she was comfortable off.’
Bradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist with his
right hand, and sat rigidly contemplating the fire.
‘She couldn’t live more handy to you than she does,’ said Riderhood,
‘and when I goes home with you (as of course I am a going), I recommend
you to clean her out without loss of time. You can marry her, arter you
and me have come to a settlement. She’s nice-looking, and I know
you can’t be keeping company with no one else, having been so lately
disapinted in another quarter.’
Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once did he
change his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his wrist. Rigid before the
fire, as if it were a charmed flame that was turning him old, he sat,
with the dark lines deepening in his face, its stare becoming more and
more haggard, its surface turning whiter and whiter as if it were being
overspread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his hair
degenerating.
Not until the late daylight made the window transparent, did this
decaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and sat in the window
looking out.
Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of the night
he had muttered twice or thrice that it was bitter cold; or that the
fire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it; but, as he could elicit from
his companion neither sound nor movement, he had afterwards held his
peace. He was making some disorderly preparations for coffee, when
Bradley came from the window and put on his outer coat and hat.
‘Hadn’t us better have a bit o’ breakfast afore we start?’ said
Riderhood. ‘It ain’t good to freeze a empty stomach, Master.’
Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of the Lock
House. Catching up from the table a piece of bread, and taking his
Bargeman’s bundle under his arm, Riderhood immediately followed him.
Bradley turned towards London. Riderhood caught him up, and walked at
his side.
The two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles.
Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. Instantly, Riderhood
turned likewise, and they went back side by side.
Bradley re-entered the Lock House. So did Riderhood. Bradley sat down in
the window. Riderhood warmed himself at the fire. After an hour or more,
Bradley abruptly got up again, and again went out, but this time turned
the other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up in a few
paces, and walked at his side.
This time, as before, when he found his attendant not to be shaken off,
Bradley suddenly turned back. This time, as before, Riderhood turned
back along with him. But, not this time, as before, did they go into the
Lock House, for Bradley came to a stand on the snow-covered turf by the
Lock, looking up the river and down the river. Navigation was impeded by
the frost, and the scene was a mere white and yellow desert.
‘Come, come, Master,’ urged Riderhood, at his side. ‘This is a dry game.
And where’s the good of it? You can’t get rid of me, except by coming to
a settlement. I am a going along with you wherever you go.’
Without a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over the wooden
bridge on the lock gates. ‘Why, there’s even less sense in this move
than t’other,’ said Riderhood, following. ‘The Weir’s there, and you’ll
have to come back, you know.’
Without taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body against a post,
in a resting attitude, and there rested with his eyes cast down. ‘Being
brought here,’ said Riderhood, gruffly, ‘I’ll turn it to some use by
changing my gates.’ With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swung-to
the lock gates that were standing open, before opening the others. So,
both sets of gates were, for the moment, closed.
‘You’d better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, Master,’ said
Riderhood, passing him, ‘or I’ll drain you all the dryer for it, when we
do settle.—Ah! Would you!’
Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be girdled with an
iron ring. They were on the brink of the Lock, about midway between the
two sets of gates.
‘Let go!’ said Riderhood, ‘or I’ll get my knife out and slash you
wherever I can cut you. Let go!’
Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing away from
it. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradley
got him round, with his back to the Lock, and still worked him backward.
‘Let go!’ said Riderhood. ‘Stop! What are you trying at? You can’t drown
Me. Ain’t I told you that the man as has come through drowning can never
be drowned? I can’t be drowned.’
‘I can be!’ returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. ‘I am
resolved to be. I’ll hold you living, and I’ll hold you dead. Come
down!’
Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstone
upon him. When the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum behind
one of the rotting gates, Riderhood’s hold had relaxed, probably in
falling, and his eyes were staring upward. But, he was girdled still
with Bradley’s iron ring, and the rivets of the iron ring held tight.
Chapter 16
PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL
Mr and Mrs John Harmon’s first delightful occupation was, to set all
matters right that had strayed in any way wrong, or that might, could,
would, or should, have strayed in any way wrong, while their name was in
abeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John’s fictitious death was
to be considered in any way responsible, they used a very broad and free
construction; regarding, for instance, the dolls’ dressmaker as having
a claim on their protection, because of her association with Mrs Eugene
Wrayburn, and because of Mrs Eugene’s old association, in her turn, with
the dark side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as a
good and serviceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even
Mr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on a
false scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer,
that a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that
he had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow flip in
the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he ‘didn’t stand to
lose a farthing’ through Mr Harmon’s coming to life, but was quite as