When dinner was done, and when what remained of the platters and what remained of the congealed gravy had been put back into what remained of the pie, which served as an economical investment for all miscellaneous savings, Riderhood filled the mug with beer and took a long drink. And now he did look at Bradley, and with an evil eye.
“T’otherest!” he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the table to touch his arm. “The news has gone down the river afore you.”
“What news?”
“Who do you think,” said Riderhood, with a hitch of his head, as if he disdainfully jerked the feint away, “picked up the body? Guess.”
“I am not good at guessing anything.”
“She did. Hooroar! You had him there agin. She did.”
The convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone’s face, and the sudden hot humour that broke out upon it, showed how grimly the intelligence touched him. But he said not a single word, good or bad. He only smiled in a lowering manner, and got up and stood leaning at the window, looking through it. Riderhood followed him with his eyes. Riderhood cast down his eyes on his own besprinkled clothes. Riderhood began to have an air of being better at a guess than Bradley owned to being.
“I have been so long in want of rest,” said the schoolmaster, “that with your leave I’ll lie down again.”
“And welcome, t’otherest!” was the hospitable answer of his host. He had laid himself down without waiting for it, and he remained upon the bed until the sun was low. When he arose and came out to resume his journey, he found his host waiting for him on the grass by the towing-path outside the door.