BOOK THE FOURTH: A TURNING
Chapter 1: Setting Traps (continued)
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 known. I've been brought out o' drowning,
and I can't be drowned. I wouldn't have that there busted
B'lowbridger aware on it, or her people might make it tell agin' the
damages I mean to get. But it's well known to water-side
characters like myself, that him as has been brought out o
drowning, can never be drowned.'
Bradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have corrected in
one of his pupils, and continued to look down into the water, as if
the place had a gloomy fascination for him.
'You seem to like it,' said Riderhood.
He took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had not heard
the words. There was a very dark expression on his face; an
expression that the Rogue found it hard to understand. It was
fierce, and full of purpose; but the purpose might have been as
much against himself as against another. If he had stepped back
for a spring, taken a leap, and thrown himself in, it would have
been no surprising sequel to the look. Perhaps his troubled soul,
set upon some violence, did hover for the moment between that
violence and another.
'Didn't you say,' asked Riderhood, after watching him for a while
with a sidelong glance, 'as you had come back for a couple o'
hours' rest?' But, even then he had to jog him with his elbow
before he answered.
'Eh? Yes.'
'Hadn't you better come in and take your couple o' hours' rest?'
'Thank you. Yes.'
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