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 whatnot 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 anyone 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!”