Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharp eyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyes of the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast. 'You shall put it plain if you want it answered,' thought the Rogue, doggedly; 'I ain't a-going a wolunteering.'
'Well! was he insolent to her too?' asked Bradley after a struggle.
'Or did he make a show of being kind to her?'
'He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,' said Riderhood. 'By George! now I--'
His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked at him for the reason.
'Now I think of it,' said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he was substituting those words for 'Now I see you so jealous,' which was the phrase really in his mind; 'P'r'aps he went and took me down wrong, a purpose, on account o' being sweet upon her!'
The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (for he could not have really entertained it), was a line's breadth beyond the mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing and intriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, and upon her brother too, was attained. The line's breadth further, lay beyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face.
What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work out in his slow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had an injury against the object of his hatred, and that was something; though it was less than he supposed, for there dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as burned in his own breast. The man knew her, and might by a fortunate chance see her, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes and ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in his pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were as bad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from the possession of a congenial instrument, though it might never be used.
Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank if he knew where she was? Clearly, he did not know. He asked Riderhood if he would be willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seeking her or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate it if it were paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was 'agin 'em both,' he said with an oath, and for why? 'Cause they had both stood betwixt him and his getting his living by the sweat of his brow.
'It will not be long then,' said Bradley Headstone, after some more discourse to this effect, 'before we see one another again. Here is the country road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise.'
'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood, 'I don't know where to find you.'
'It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll come to your Lock.'
'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood again, 'no luck never come yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's wet it, in a mouth-fill of rum and milk, T'otherest Governon' Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, haunted by unsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts, farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain human nightbirds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves after their several manners; and where not one of the nightbirds hovering about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wasted nightbird with respectable feathers, the worst nightbird of all.
An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going his way led to Mr Riderhood's being elevated on a high heap of baskets on a waggon, and pursuing his journey recumbent on his back with his head on his bundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his steps, and by-and-by struck off through little-traversed ways, and by-and-by reached school and home. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodically dressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, and pepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket, and its decent hair-guard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad for the field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him.
Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of the much-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities under a contagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture, he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newly gone. He had been spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a record of the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scripture on the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken fright and run away from the master.
