The creaking lock-gates opened slowly, and the light boat passed in as soon as there was room enough, and the creaking lock-gates closed upon it, and it floated low down in the dock between the two sets of gates, until the water should rise and the second gates should open and let it out. When Riderhood had run to his second windlass and turned it, and while he leaned against the lever of that gate to help it to swing open presently, he noticed, lying to rest under the green hedge by the towing-path astern of the lock, a bargeman.
The water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing the scum which had formed behind the lumbering gates, and sending the boat up, so that the sculler gradually rose like an apparition against the light from the bargeman’s point of view. Riderhood observed that the bargeman rose too, leaning on his arm, and seemed to have his eyes fastened on the rising figure.
But, there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now complaining and opening. The t’other governor tossed it ashore, twisted in a piece of paper, and as he did so, knew his man.
“Ay, ay? It’s you, is it, honest friend?” said Eugene, seating himself preparatory to resuming his sculls. “You got the place, then?”
“I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet none to Lawyer Lightwood,” gruffly answered Riderhood.
“We saved our recommendation, honest fellow,” said Eugene, “for the next candidate—the one who will offer himself when you are transported or hanged. Don’t be long about it; will you be so good?”
So imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent to his work that Riderhood remained staring at him, without having found a retort, until he had rowed past a line of wooden objects by the weir, which showed like huge teetotums standing at rest in the water, and was almost