The two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces than they had shown yet.
“Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation,” said Mortimer Lightwood.
“On the grounds,” answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his sleeve, “that I was Gaffer’s pardner, and suspected of him many a long day and many a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his ways. On the grounds that I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which I warn you his daughter may tell you another story about that, for anythink I can say, but you know what it’ll be worth, for she’d tell you lies, the world round and the heavens broad, to save her father. On the grounds that it’s well understood along the cause’ays and the stairs that he done it. On the grounds that he’s fell off from, because he done it. On the grounds that I will swear he done it. On the grounds that you may take me where you will, and get me sworn to it. I don’t want to back out of the consequences. I have made up my mind. Take me anywheres.”
“All this is nothing,” said Lightwood.
“Nothing?” repeated Riderhood, indignantly and amazedly.
“Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this man of the crime. You may do so with some reason, or you may do so with no reason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion.”
“Haven’t I said—I appeal to the t’other Governor as my witness—haven’t I said from the first minute that I opened my mouth in this here world-without-end-everlasting chair,” (he evidently used that form of words as next in force to an affidavit), “that I was willing to swear that he done it? Haven’t I said, Take me and get me sworn to it? Don’t I say so now? You won’t deny it, Lawyer Lightwood?”