“What are you up to?” muttered Riderhood, down in the ditch, and holding the hedge a little open with both hands. And soon his actions made a most extraordinary reply. “By George and the Draggin!” cried Riderhood, “if he ain’t a going to bathe!”

He had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees again, and has passed on to the waterside and had begun undressing on the grass. For a moment it had a suspicious look of suicide, arranged to counterfeit accident. “But you wouldn’t have fetched a bundle under your arm, from among that timber, if such was your game!” said Riderhood. Nevertheless it was a relief to him when the bather after a plunge and a few strokes came out. “For I shouldn’t,” he said in a feeling manner, “have liked to lose you till I had made more money out of you neither.”