“He has put up for the night, at an Angler’s Inn,” was the fatigued and hoarse reply. “He goes on, up the river, at six in the morning. I have come back for a couple of hours’ rest.”

“You want ’em,” said Riderhood, making towards the schoolmaster by his plank bridge.

“I don’t want them,” returned Bradley, irritably, “because I would rather not have them, but would much prefer to follow him all night. However, if he won’t lead, I can’t follow. I have been waiting about, until I could discover, for a certainty, at what time he starts; if I couldn’t have made sure of it, I should have stayed there.⁠—This would be a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. These slippery smooth walls would give him no chance. And I suppose those gates would suck him down?”

“Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn’t get out,” said Riderhood. “Not even, if his hands warn’t tied, he wouldn’t. Shut him in at both ends, and I’d give him a pint o’ old ale ever to come up to me standing here.”