'That's better,' said the man, without a word of thanks, as he slipped into the warm overcoat. 'Eh! now,' said he, 'if t'were nobbut for the way t'rick spun aboot, I could na' ha' stuck there. I wouldn't ha' gone out o' life, spinning like a skoprill' (tee-totum), 'not on no account; I'd a-gone staggering into t'other world, and ha' been took for a drunkard, and I'm a teetotaler, have been these fifteen years. Fifteen years sin' I took t'pledge, and never bust out but once.'
'You have water enough to satisfy you now,' said Jeremiah grimly.
'Dost'a want to argy?' asked the man. 'Becos if so, I'm the man for thee, Peter—one, three, twenty, what dost'a say to that, eh?'
Jeremiah was in no mood to argue, nor was the time or place suitable; but not so thought this fanatic, to whom every time and place was appropriate for a dispute about alcohol.
'I wonder whether the water is falling,' said the manufacturer, drawing himself away from his companion and looking over the edge into the current. He saw apples, hundreds of apples swimming past; a long wavering line of them coming down the stream, like migrating ants, or a Rechabite procession, turning over, bobbing, but all in sequence one behind the other. By daylight they would have resembled a chain of red and yellow beads, but now they showed as jet grains on silver. They had come, no doubt, from a farmer's store or out of a huckster's cart.
Jeremiah leaned over the eave of the hut to test the distance of the water; then caught an apple and threw it on the roof, whence it rolled over and rejoined the procession on the further side.
''Tis a pity now,' muttered the man in nightshirt and topcoat, ''tis a pity aboot my bullock, I were bown to sell'n a Friday.'
Suddenly Jeremiah recoiled from his place, for, dancing on the water was a human body, a woman, doubtless, for there was a kerchief about the head, and in the arms a child, also dead. The woman's eyes were open, and the moon glinted in the whites. They seemed to be looking and winking at Jeremiah. Then a murky wave washed over the face, like a hand passed over it, but it did not close the eyes, which again glimmered forth. Then, up rose the corpse, lifted by the water, but seeming to struggle to gain its feet. It was caught in that swirl, that dimple Jeremiah had noticed on the face of the flood above his place of refuge.
How cruel the current was! Not content with drowning human beings, it romped with them after the life was choked out of them, it played with them ghastly pranks. The undercurrent sucked the body back, and then ran it against the bricks, using it as a battering-ram. Then it caught the head of the poplar and whipped the corpse with it, as though whipping it on to its work which it was reluctant to perform. The manufacturer had gone out that night with his umbrella, and had carried it with him to the roof of the hut. Now with the crook he sought to disengage the dead woman and thrust her away from the wall into the main current; he could not endure to see the body impelled headlong against the bricks.
'What art a'doing?' asked the man, also looking over. Then, after a moment he uttered a cry, drew back, clasped his hands, then looked again, and again exclaimed: 'Sho's my own lass, and sho's a hugging my bairn!'