hidden by the drooping boughs on the left bank, as he rowed away, keeping out of the opposing current. It being then too late to retort with any effect—if that could ever have been done—the honest man confined himself to cursing and growling in a grim undertone. Having then got his gates shut, he crossed back by his plank lock-bridge to the towing-path side of the river.
If, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he did it by stealth. He cast himself on the grass by the lock side, in an indolent way, with his back in that direction, and, having gathered a few blades, fell to chewing them. The dip of Eugene Wrayburn’s sculls had become hardly audible in his ears when the bargeman passed him, putting the utmost width that he could between them, and keeping under the hedge. Then, Riderhood sat up and took a long look at his figure, and then cried: “Hi—I—i! Lock,