Chapter 12
MORE BIRDS OF PREY
Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, among theriggers, and the mast, oar and block makers, and the boat-builders, andthe sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored full of watersidecharacters, some no better than himself, some very much better, andnone much worse. The Hole, albeit in a general way not over nice inits choice of company, was rather shy in reference to the honour ofcultivating the Rogue's acquaintance; more frequently giving him thecold shoulder than the warm hand, and seldom or never drinking with himunless at his own expense. A part of the Hole, indeed, contained somuch public spirit and private virtue that not even this strong leveragecould move it to good fellowship with a tainted accuser. But, there mayhave been the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponentsheld a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly andaccursed character to a false one.
Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr Riderhoodmight have found the Hole a mere grave as to any means it would yieldhim of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some littleposition and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of smallscales, she was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was popularlycalled a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on insignificantarticles of property deposited with her as security. In herfour-and-twentieth year of life, Pleasant was already in her fifth yearof this way of trade. Her deceased mother had established the business,and on that parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital offifteen shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence ofsuch capital in a pillow being the last intelligible confidentialcommunication made to her by the departed, before succumbing todropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally withcoherence and existence.
Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might possibly havebeen at some time able to explain, and possibly not. Her daughter had noinformation on that point. Pleasant she found herself, and she couldn'thelp it. She had not been consulted on the question, any more than onthe question of her coming into these terrestrial parts, to want a name.Similarly, she found herself possessed of what is colloquially termeda swivel eye (derived from her father), which she might perhaps havedeclined if her sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was nototherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddycomplexion, and looking as old again as she really was.
As some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry certaincreatures to a certain point, so--not to make the comparisondisrespectfully--Pleasant Riderhood had it in the blood, or had beentrained, to regard seamen, within certain limits, as her prey. Showher a man in a blue jacket, and, figuratively speaking, she pinned himinstantly. Yet, all things considered, she was not of an evil mind or anunkindly disposition. For, observe how many things were to be consideredaccording to her own unfortunate experience. Show Pleasant Riderhood aWedding in the street, and she only saw two people taking out a regularlicence to quarrel and fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw alittle heathen personage having a quite superfluous name bestowed uponit, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by some abusive epithet:which little personage was not in the least wanted by anybody, and wouldbe shoved and banged out of everybody's way, until it should growbig enough to shove and bang. Show her a Funeral, and she saw anunremunerative ceremony in the nature of a black masquerade, conferringa temporary gentility on the performers, at an immense expense, andrepresenting the only formal party ever given by the deceased. Show hera live father, and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who fromher infancy had been taken with fits and starts of discharging his dutyto her, which duty was always incorporated in the form of a fist or aleathern strap, and being discharged hurt her. All things considered,therefore, Pleasant Riderhood was not so very, very bad. There was evena touch of romance in her--of such romance as could creep into LimehouseHole--and maybe sometimes of a summer evening, when she stood withfolded arms at her shop-door, looking from the reeking street to thesky where the sun was setting, she may have had some vaporous visionsof far-off islands in the southern seas or elsewhere (not beinggeographically particular), where it would be good to roam with acongenial partner among groves of bread-fruit, waiting for ships to bewafted from the hollow ports of civilization. For, sailors to be got thebetter of, were essential to Miss Pleasant's Eden.
Not on a summer evening did she come to her little shop-door, when acertain man standing over against the house on the opposite side ofthe street took notice of her. That was on a cold shrewd windy evening,after dark. Pleasant Riderhood shared with most of the lady inhabitantsof the Hole, the peculiarity that her hair was a ragged knot, constantlycoming down behind, and that she never could enter upon any undertakingwithout first twisting it into place. At that particular moment, beingnewly come to the threshold to take a look out of doors, she was windingherself up with both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent was thefashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other disturbance in theHole, the ladies would be seen flocking from all quarters universallytwisting their back-hair as they came along, and many of them, in thehurry of the moment, carrying their back-combs in their mouths.
It was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man standing in itcould touch with his hand; little better than a cellar or cave, downthree steps. Yet in its ill-lighted window, among a flaring handkerchiefor two, an old peacoat or so, a few valueless watches and compasses, ajar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a bottle of walnut ketchup, andsome horrible sweets these creature discomforts serving as a blind tothe main business of the Leaving Shop--was displayed the inscriptionSEAMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE.
Taking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man crossed soquickly that she was still winding herself up, when he stood closebefore her.
'Is your father at home?' said he.
'I think he is,' returned Pleasant, dropping her arms; 'come in.'
It was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appearance. Herfather was not at home, and Pleasant knew it. 'Take a seat by the fire,'were her hospitable words when she had got him in; 'men of your callingare always welcome here.'
'Thankee,' said the man.
His manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were the hands ofa sailor, except that they were smooth. Pleasant had an eye for sailors,and she noticed the unused colour and texture of the hands, sunburntthough they were, as sharply as she noticed their unmistakable loosenessand suppleness, as he sat himself down with his left arm carelesslythrown across his left leg a little above the knee, and the right armas carelessly thrown over the elbow of the wooden chair, with the handcurved, half open and half shut, as if it had just let go a rope.
'Might you be looking for a Boarding-House?' Pleasant inquired, takingher observant stand on one side of the fire.
'I don't rightly know my plans yet,' returned the man.
'You ain't looking for a Leaving Shop?'
'No,' said the man.
'No,' assented Pleasant, 'you've got too much of an outfit on you forthat. But if you should want either, this is both.'
'Ay, ay!' said the man, glancing round the place. 'I know. I've beenhere before.'
'Did you Leave anything when you were here before?' asked Pleasant, witha view to principal and interest.
'No.' The man shook his head.
'I am pretty sure you never boarded here?'
'No.' The man again shook his head.
'What DID you do here when you were here before?' asked Pleasant. 'For Idon't remember you.'
'It's not at all likely you should. I only stood at the door, onenight--on the lower step there--while a shipmate of mine looked in tospeak to your father. I remember the place well.' Looking very curiouslyround it.
'Might that have been long ago?'
'Ay, a goodish bit ago. When I came off my last voyage.'
'Then you have not been to sea lately?'
'No. Been in the sick bay since then, and been employed ashore.'
'Then, to be sure, that accounts for your hands.'
The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of manner, caughther up. 'You're a good observer. Yes. That accounts for my hands.'
Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned itsuspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, though very sudden,quite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed, had acertain suppressed confidence and sense of power in it that were halfthreatening.
'Will your father be long?' he inquired.
'I don't know. I can't say.'
'As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just goneout? How's that?'
'I supposed he had come home,' Pleasant explained.
'Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some time out?How's that?'
'I don't want to deceive you. Father's on the river in his boat.'
'At the old work?' asked the man.
'I don't know what you mean,' said Pleasant, shrinking a step back.'What on earth d'ye want?'
'I don't want to hurt your father. I don't want to say I might, if Ichose. I want to speak to him. Not much in that, is there? There shallbe no secrets from you; you shall be by. And plainly, Miss Riderhood,there's nothing to be got out of me, or made of me. I am not good forthe Leaving Shop, I am not good for the Boarding-House, I am not goodfor anything in your way to the extent of sixpenn'orth of halfpence. Putthe idea aside, and we shall get on together.'
'But you're a seafaring man?' argued Pleasant, as if that were asufficient reason for his being good for something in her way.
'Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am not for you.Won't you take my word for it?'
The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's hairin tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she twisted it up,looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In taking stock of hisfamiliarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she tookstock of a formidable knife in a sheath at his waist ready to his hand,and of a whistle hanging round his neck, and of a short jagged knottedclub with a loaded head that peeped out of a pocket of his looseouter jacket or frock. He sat quietly looking at her; but, with theseappendages partially revealing themselves, and with a quantityof bristling oakum-coloured head and whisker, he had a formidableappearance.
'Won't you take my word for it?' he asked again.
Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with another shortdumb nod. Then he got up and stood with his arms folded, in front ofthe fire, looking down into it occasionally, as she stood with her armsfolded, leaning against the side of the chimney-piece.
'To wile away the time till your father comes,' he said,--'pray is theremuch robbing and murdering of seamen about the water-side now?'
'No,' said Pleasant.
'Any?'
'Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Ratcliffe and Wappingand up that way. But who knows how many are true?'
'To be sure. And it don't seem necessary.'
'That's what I say,' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it?Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what they have,without it.'
'You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, withoutviolence,' said the man.
'Of course it may,' said Pleasant; 'and then they ship again and getmore. And the best thing for 'em, too, to ship again as soon as everthey can be brought to it. They're never so well off as when they'reafloat.'
'I'll tell you why I ask,' pursued the visitor, looking up from thefire. 'I was once beset that way myself, and left for dead.'
'No?' said Pleasant. 'Where did it happen?'
'It happened,' returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew hisright hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the pocket of hisrough outer coat, 'it happened somewhere about here as I reckon. I don'tthink it can have been a mile from here.'
'Were you drunk?' asked Pleasant.
'I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not been drinking, youunderstand. A mouthful did it.'
Pleasant with a grave look shook her head; importing that she understoodthe process, but decidedly disapproved.
'Fair trade is one thing,' said she, 'but that's another. No one has aright to carry on with Jack in THAT way.'
'The sentiment does you credit,' returned the man, with a grim smile;and added, in a mutter, 'the more so, as I believe it's not yourfather's.--Yes, I had a bad time of it, that time. I lost everything,and had a sharp struggle for my life, weak as I was.'
'Did you get the parties punished?' asked Pleasant.
'A tremendous punishment followed,' said the man, more seriously; 'butit was not of my bringing about.'
'Of whose, then?' asked Pleasant.
The man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly recovering thathand, settled his chin in it again as he looked at the fire. Bringingher inherited eye to bear upon him, Pleasant Riderhood felt moreand more uncomfortable, his manner was so mysterious, so stern, soself-possessed.
'Anyways,' said the damsel, 'I am glad punishment followed, and I sayso. Fair trade with seafaring men gets a bad name through deeds ofviolence. I am as much against deeds of violence being done to seafaringmen, as seafaring men can be themselves. I am of the same opinion as mymother was, when she was living. Fair trade, my mother used to say, butno robbery and no blows.' In the way of trade Miss Pleasant would havetaken--and indeed did take when she could--as much as thirty shillingsa week for board that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted theLeaving business upon correspondingly equitable principles; yet she hadthat tenderness of conscience and those feelings of humanity, that themoment her ideas of trade were overstepped, she became the seaman'schampion, even against her father whom she seldom otherwise resisted.
But, she was here interrupted by her father's voice exclaiming angrily,'Now, Poll Parrot!' and by her father's hat being heavily flung from hishand and striking her face. Accustomed to such occasional manifestationsof his sense of parental duty, Pleasant merely wiped her face on herhair (which of course had tumbled down) before she twisted it up. Thiswas another common procedure on the part of the ladies of the Hole, whenheated by verbal or fistic altercation.
'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned tospeak!' growled Mr Riderhood, stooping to pick up his hat, and makinga feint at her with his head and right elbow; for he took the delicatesubject of robbing seamen in extraordinary dudgeon, and was out ofhumour too. 'What are you Poll Parroting at now? Ain't you got nothingto do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting all night?'
'Let her alone,' urged the man. 'She was only speaking to me.'
'Let her alone too!' retorted Mr Riderhood, eyeing him all over. 'Do youknow she's my daughter?'
'Yes.'
'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the part ofmy daughter? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll Parroting from noman? And who may YOU be, and what may YOU want?'
'How can I tell you until you are silent?' returned the other fiercely.
'Well,' said Mr Riderhood, quailing a little, 'I am willing to be silentfor the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll Parrot me.'
'Are you thirsty, you?' the man asked, in the same fierce short way,after returning his look.
'Why nat'rally,' said Mr Riderhood, 'ain't I always thirsty!' (Indignantat the absurdity of the question.)
'What will you drink?' demanded the man.
'Sherry wine,' returned Mr Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 'if you'recapable of it.'
The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, andbegged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would fetch a bottle. 'Withthe cork undrawn,' he added, emphatically, looking at her father.
'I'll take my Alfred David,' muttered Mr Riderhood, slowly relaxing intoa dark smile, 'that you know a move. Do I know YOU? N--n--no, I don'tknow you.'
The man replied, 'No, you don't know me.' And so they stood looking atone another surlily enough, until Pleasant came back.
'There's small glasses on the shelf,' said Riderhood to his daughter.'Give me the one without a foot. I gets my living by the sweat of mybrow, and it's good enough for ME.' This had a modest self-denyingappearance; but it soon turned out that as, by reason of theimpossibility of standing the glass upright while there was anything init, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr Riderhood managed todrink in the proportion of three to one.
With his Fortunatus's goblet ready in his hand, Mr Riderhood sat down onone side of the table before the fire, and the strange man on the other:Pleasant occupying a stool between the latter and the fireside. Thebackground, composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and otherold articles 'On Leaving,' had a general dim resemblance to humanlisteners; especially where a shiny black sou'wester suit and hat hung,looking very like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company, whowas so curious to overhear, that he paused for the purpose with hiscoat half pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompletedaction.
The visitor first held the bottle against the light of the candle,and next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied that it had not beentampered with, he slowly took from his breastpocket a rusty clasp-knife,and, with a corkscrew in the handle, opened the wine. That done,he looked at the cork, unscrewed it from the corkscrew, laid eachseparately on the table, and, with the end of the sailor's knot of hisneckerchief, dusted the inside of the neck of the bottle. All this withgreat deliberation.
At first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at arm'slength for filling, while the very deliberate stranger seemed absorbedin his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted home to him, andhis glass was lowered and lowered until he rested it upside down uponthe table. By the same degrees his attention became concentrated onthe knife. And now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round,Riderhood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the knife,and stared from it to him.
'What's the matter?' asked the man.
'Why, I know that knife!' said Riderhood.
'Yes, I dare say you do.'
He motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. Riderhoodemptied it to the last drop and began again.
'That there knife--'
'Stop,' said the man, composedly. 'I was going to drink to yourdaughter. Your health, Miss Riderhood.'
'That knife was the knife of a seaman named George Radfoot.'
'It was.'
'That seaman was well beknown to me.'
'He was.'
'What's come to him?'
'Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly shape. He looked,'said the man, 'very horrible after it.'
'Arter what?' said Riderhood, with a frowning stare.
'After he was killed.'
'Killed? Who killed him?'
Only answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless glass, andRiderhood emptied it: looking amazedly from his daughter to his visitor.
'You don't mean to tell a honest man--' he was recommencing withhis empty glass in his hand, when his eye became fascinated by thestranger's outer coat. He leaned across the table to see it nearer,touched the sleeve, turned the cuff to look at the sleeve-lining (theman, in his perfect composure, offering not the least objection), andexclaimed, 'It's my belief as this here coat was George Radfoot's too!'
'You are right. He wore it the last time you ever saw him, and the lasttime you ever will see him--in this world.'
'It's my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed him!'exclaimed Riderhood; but, nevertheless, allowing his glass to be filledagain.
The man only answered with another shrug, and showed no symptom ofconfusion.
'Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this chap!' saidRiderhood, after staring at him, and tossing his last glassful down histhroat. 'Let's know what to make of you. Say something plain.'
'I will,' returned the other, leaning forward across the table, andspeaking in a low impressive voice. 'What a liar you are!'
The honest witness rose, and made as though he would fling his glass inthe man's face. The man not wincing, and merely shaking his forefingerhalf knowingly, half menacingly, the piece of honesty thought better ofit and sat down again, putting the glass down too.
'And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple with thatinvented story,' said the stranger, in an exasperatingly comfortablesort of confidence, 'you might have had your strong suspicions of afriend of your own, you know. I think you had, you know.'
'Me my suspicions? Of what friend?'
'Tell me again whose knife was this?' demanded the man.
'It was possessed by, and was the property of--him as I have mademention on,' said Riderhood, stupidly evading the actual mention of thename.
'Tell me again whose coat was this?'
'That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and was woreby--him as I have made mention on,' was again the dull Old Baileyevasion.
'I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and of keepingcleverly out of the way. But there was small cleverness in HIS keepingout of the way. The cleverness would have been, to have got back for onesingle instant to the light of the sun.'
'Things is come to a pretty pass,' growled Mr Riderhood, rising to hisfeet, goaded to stand at bay, 'when bullyers as is wearing dead men'sclothes, and bullyers as is armed with dead men's knives, is to comeinto the houses of honest live men, getting their livings by the sweatsof their brows, and is to make these here sort of charges with no rhymeand no reason, neither the one nor yet the other! Why should I have hadmy suspicions of him?'
'Because you knew him,' replied the man; 'because you had been one withhim, and knew his real character under a fair outside; because on thenight which you had afterwards reason to believe to be the very night ofthe murder, he came in here, within an hour of his having left his shipin the docks, and asked you in what lodgings he could find room. Wasthere no stranger with him?'
'I'll take my world-without-end everlasting Alfred David that you warn'twith him,' answered Riderhood. 'You talk big, you do, but things lookpretty black against yourself, to my thinking. You charge again' me thatGeorge Radfoot got lost sight of, and was no more thought of. What'sthat for a sailor? Why there's fifty such, out of sight and out ofmind, ten times as long as him--through entering in different names,re-shipping when the out'ard voyage is made, and what not--a turningup to light every day about here, and no matter made of it. Ask mydaughter. You could go on Poll Parroting enough with her, when I warn'tcome in: Poll Parrot a little with her on this pint. You and yoursuspicions of my suspicions of him! What are my suspicions of you? Youtell me George Radfoot got killed. I ask you who done it and how youknow it. You carry his knife and you wear his coat. I ask you how youcome by 'em? Hand over that there bottle!' Here Mr Riderhood appearedto labour under a virtuous delusion that it was his own property. 'Andyou,' he added, turning to his daughter, as he filled the footlessglass, 'if it warn't wasting good sherry wine on you, I'd chuck this atyou, for Poll Parroting with this man. It's along of Poll Parrotingthat such like as him gets their suspicions, whereas I gets mine byargueyment, and being nat'rally a honest man, and sweating away at thebrow as a honest man ought.' Here he filled the footless goblet again,and stood chewing one half of its contents and looking down into theother as he slowly rolled the wine about in the glass; while Pleasant,whose sympathetic hair had come down on her being apostrophised,rearranged it, much in the style of the tail of a horse when proceedingto market to be sold.
'Well? Have you finished?' asked the strange man.
'No,' said Riderhood, 'I ain't. Far from it. Now then! I want to knowhow George Radfoot come by his death, and how you come by his kit?'
'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'
'And next I want to know,' proceeded Riderhood 'whether you mean tocharge that what-you-may-call-it-murder--'
'Harmon murder, father,' suggested Pleasant.
'No Poll Parroting!' he vociferated, in return. 'Keep your mouthshut!--I wan
t to know, you sir, whether you charge that there crime onGeorge Radfoot?'
'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'
'Perhaps you done it yourself?' said Riderhood, with a threateningaction.
'I alone know,' returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 'themysteries of that crime. I alone know that your trumped-up story cannotpossibly be true. I alone know that it must be altogether false, andthat you must know it to be altogether false. I come here to-night totell you so much of what I know, and no more.'
Mr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated for somemoments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the contents down histhroat in three tips.
'Shut the shop-door!' he then said to his daughter, putting the glasssuddenly down. 'And turn the key and stand by it! If you know all this,you sir,' getting, as he spoke, between the visitor and the door, 'whyhan't you gone to Lawyer Lightwood?'
'That, also, is alone known to myself,' was the cool answer.
'Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say you couldtell is worth from five to ten thousand pound?' asked Riderhood.
'I know it very well, and when I claim the money you shall share it.'
The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, and alittle further from the door.
'I know it,' repeated the man, quietly, 'as well as I know that you andGeorge Radfoot were one together in more than one dark business; and aswell as I know that you, Roger Riderhood, conspired against an innocentman for blood-money; and as well as I know that I can--and that I swearI will!--give you up on both scores, and be the proof against you in myown person, if you defy me!'
'Father!' cried Pleasant, from the door. 'Don't defy him! Give way tohim! Don't get into more trouble, father!'
'Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you?' cried Mr Riderhood,half beside himself between the two. Then, propitiatingly andcrawlingly: 'You sir! You han't said what you want of me. Is it fair, isit worthy of yourself, to talk of my defying you afore ever you say whatyou want of me?'
'I don't want much,' said the man. 'This accusation of yours must not beleft half made and half unmade. What was done for the blood-money mustbe thoroughly undone.'
'Well; but Shipmate--'
'Don't call me Shipmate,' said the man.
'Captain, then,' urged Mr Riderhood; 'there! You won't object toCaptain. It's a honourable title, and you fully look it. Captain! Ain'tthe man dead? Now I ask you fair. Ain't Gaffer dead?'
'Well,' returned the other, with impatience, 'yes, he is dead. Whatthen?'
'Can words hurt a dead man, Captain? I only ask you fair.'
'They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can hurt his livingchildren. How many children had this man?'
'Meaning Gaffer, Captain?'
'Of whom else are we speaking?' returned the other, with a movement ofhis foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to sneak before him inthe body as well as the spirit, and he spurned him off. 'I have heardof a daughter, and a son. I ask for information; I ask YOUR daughter; Iprefer to speak to her. What children did Hexam leave?'
Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that honest manexclaimed with great bitterness:
'Why the devil don't you answer the Captain? You can Poll Parrot enoughwhen you ain't wanted to Poll Parrot, you perwerse jade!'
Thus encouraged, Pleasant explained that there were only Lizzie, thedaughter in question, and the youth. Both very respectable, she added.
'It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them,' said thevisitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy that he rose, andpaced to and fro, muttering, 'Dreadful! Unforeseen? How could it beforeseen!' Then he stopped, and asked aloud: 'Where do they live?'
Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided with thefather at the time of his accidental death, and that she had immediatelyafterwards quitted the neighbourhood.
'I know that,' said the man, 'for I have been to the place they dweltin, at the time of the inquest. Could you quietly find out for me whereshe lives now?'
Pleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what time, did shethink? Within a day. The visitor said that was well, and he would returnfor the information, relying on its being obtained. To this dialogueRiderhood had attended in silence, and he now obsequiously bespake theCaptain.
'Captain! Mentioning them unfort'net words of mine respecting Gaffer,it is contrairily to be bore in mind that Gaffer always were a preciousrascal, and that his line were a thieving line. Likeways when I went tothem two Governors, Lawyer Lightwood and the t'other Governor, withmy information, I may have been a little over-eager for the cause ofjustice, or (to put it another way) a little over-stimilated by themfeelings which rouses a man up, when a pot of money is going about,to get his hand into that pot of money for his family's sake. Besideswhich, I think the wine of them two Governors was--I will not saya hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind. Andthere's another thing to be remembered, Captain. Did I stick to themwords when Gaffer was no more, and did I say bold to them two Governors,"Governors both, wot I informed I still inform; wot was took down I holdto"? No. I says, frank and open--no shuffling, mind you, Captain!--"Imay have been mistook, I've been a thinking of it, it mayn't have beentook down correct on this and that, and I won't swear to thick and thin,I'd rayther forfeit your good opinions than do it." And so far asI know,' concluded Mr Riderhood, by way of proof and evidence tocharacter, 'I HAVE actiwally forfeited the good opinions of severalpersons--even your own, Captain, if I understand your words--but I'dsooner do it than be forswore. There; if that's conspiracy, call meconspirator.'
'You shall sign,' said the visitor, taking very little heed of thisoration, 'a statement that it was all utterly false, and the poor girlshall have it. I will bring it with me for your signature, when I comeagain.'
'When might you be expected, Captain?' inquired Riderhood, againdubiously getting between him and door.
'Quite soon enough for you. I shall not disappoint you; don't beafraid.'
'Might you be inclined to leave any name, Captain?'
'No, not at all. I have no such intention.'
'"Shall" is summ'at of a hard word, Captain,' urged Riderhood, stillfeebly dodging between him and the door, as he advanced. 'When you say aman "shall" sign this and that and t'other, Captain, you order him aboutin a grand sort of a way. Don't it seem so to yourself?'
The man stood still, and angrily fixed him with his eyes.
'Father, father!' entreated Pleasant, from the door, with her disengagedhand nervously trembling at her lips; 'don't! Don't get into trouble anymore!'
'Hear me out, Captain, hear me out! All I was wishing to mention,Captain, afore you took your departer,' said the sneaking Mr Riderhood,falling out of his path, 'was, your handsome words relating to thereward.'
'When I claim it,' said the man, in a tone which seemed to leave somesuch words as 'you dog,' very distinctly understood, 'you shall shareit.'
Looking stedfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in a low voice, thistime with a grim sort of admiration of him as a perfect piece of evil,'What a liar you are!' and, nodding his head twice or thrice over thecompliment, passed out of the shop. But, to Pleasant he said good-nightkindly.
The honest man who gained his living by the sweat of his brow remainedin a state akin to stupefaction, until the footless glass and theunfinished bottle conveyed themselves into his mind. From his mind heconveyed them into his hands, and so conveyed the last of the wine intohis stomach. When that was done, he awoke to a clear perception thatPoll Parroting was solely chargeable with what had passed. Therefore,not to be remiss in his duty as a father, he threw a pair of sea-bootsat Pleasant, which she ducked to avoid, and then cried, poor thing,using her hair for a pocket-handkerchief.