ruser inquiry why otherwise it was done. And he devised
a means.

Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought forth, into the
now sober grey light, his chest of clothes. Sitting on the grass beside
it, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, until he came
to a conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black here and there by
wear. It arrested his attention, and he sat pausing over it, until he
took off the rusty colourless wisp that he wore round his throat, and
substituted the red neckerchief, leaving the long ends flowing. 'Now,'
said the Rogue, 'if arter he sees me in this neckhankecher, I see him in
a sim'lar neckhankecher, it won't be accident!' Elated by his device, he
carried his chest in again and went to supper.

'Lock ho! Lock!' It was a light night, and a barge coming down summoned
him out of a long doze. In due course he had let the barge through
and was alone again, looking to the closing of his gates, when Bradley
Headstone appeared before him, standing on the brink of the Lock.

'Halloa!' said Riderhood. 'Back a' ready, T'otherest?'

'He has put up for the night, at an Angler's Inn,' was the fatigued and
hoarse reply. 'He goes on, up the river, at six in the morning. I have
come back for a couple of hours' rest.'

'You want 'em,' said Riderhood, making towards the schoolmaster by his
plank bridge.

'I don't want them,' returned Bradley, irritably, 'because I would
rather not have them, but would much prefer to follow him all night.
However, if he won't lead, I can't follow. I have been waiting about,
until I could discover, for a certainty, at what time he starts; if I
couldn't have made sure of it, I should have stayed there.--This would
be a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. These
slippery smooth walls would give him no chance. And I suppose those
gates would suck him down?'

'Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn't get out,' said Riderhood.
'Not even, if his hands warn't tied, he wouldn't. Shut him in at both
ends, and I'd give him a pint o' old ale ever to come up to me standing
here.'

Bradley looked down with a ghastly relish. 'You run about the brink, and
run across it, in this uncertain light, on a few inches width of rotten
wood,' said he. 'I wonder you have no thought of being drowned.'

'I can't be!' said Riderhood.

'You can't be drowned?'

'No!' said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of thorough
conviction, 'it's well kn