Roger "Rogue" Riderhood

Roger "Rogue" Riderhood
Rogue Riderhood is another low class "waterside character" who begins the novel in the same profession as Gaffer Hexam, as a man who plumbs the depths of the Thames for missing corpses. In the first chapter of the novel, readers find out that Riderhood and Hexam were once partners in the trade, but it Gaffer alludes to some sort of thievery on Riderhood's behalf and thus their partnership dissolved. When Gaffer finds the Harmon body, Riderhood goes to Mortimer Lightwood, Esquire, to collect the reward for offering information on the perpetrator who he deems to be Gaffer. It is from Rogue's baseless and slanderous accusation that the Hexam name becomes spoiled, to be later restored by John Rokesmith, who confronts Riderhood and forces him to come clean as a liar to absolve Lizzie after her father has died.

Riderhood later strikes up a nefarious partnership of sorts with Bradley Headstone. He provides food and shelter for him while Bradley is following Eugene Wrayburn in an attempt to murder him. In all of this, Riderhood proves himself to be a hardy (albeit contemptible) character who adapts well to different blue collar professions. He isn't very well spoken and admits himself to be uneducated, a characteristic that directly juxtaposes that of the disciplined schoolmaster Bradley. In spite of Riderhood's lack of education, he still thrives as a wiley, aware, trickster, always looking out for the best way to get money, even if that means robbing, tricking, or manipulating his "prey."

Chapter XII
"'Lawyer Lightwood,' ducking at him a servile air, 'I am a man as gets my living, and as seeks to get my living, by the sweat of my brow. Not to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, by any chances, I should wish afore going further to be swore in.'

'I am not a swearer in of people, man.'

The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedly muttered, 'Alfred David.'

'Is that your name?' asked Lightwood.

'My name?' returned the man. 'No; I want to take a Alfred David.'

(Which Eugene smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as meaning Affidavit)" (151). "Deferring to the man's sense of the binding powers of pen and ink and paper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene's nodded proposal to take those spells in hand" (152). "'I should wish, Lawyer Lightwood,' he stipulated, 'to have that T'other Governer as my witness that what I said I said. Consequent, will T'other Governor be so good as to chuck me his name and where he lives?'
 * At this early point in the novel, Riderhood has just slandered Gaffer by telling Abbey Potterson of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters bar that Gaffer killed Harmon so he could make money off of collecting his body from the river. This accusation, of course, isn't true, as Riderhood does this in order to reap the Boffin reward for information on the murder. He is now seeing Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn and is showing, in spite of himself, how uneducated he is. His speech is as disjointed as it is dishonest, and it is clear from his conception of legal processes that he doesn't know how they work. He also doesn't know how to pronounce "affidavit" and humorously mispronounces it as "Alfred David." Luckily Eugene's sharp insight discerns the mistake and "interprets" what the speaker means to say.
 * Even though he lacks refinement in the legal proceedings that Mortimer and Eugene are well versed in, it is affirmed that Riderhood does indeed have a "sense of the binding powers of pen and ink and paper." Despite his lack of a formal education and facility with language, Riderhood is certainly smart and crafty; but he is so for all the "wrong" moral reasons.

Eugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his card. After spelling it out slowly, the man made it into a little roll, and tied it up in an end of his neckerchief still more slowly" (152). "'Haven't I said -- I appeal to the T'other Governor as my witness -- haven't I said from the first minute that I opened my mouth in this here world-without-end-everlasting-chair' (he evidently used that form of words as next in force to an affidavit), 'that I was willing to swear that he done it? Haven't I said, Take me and get me sworn to it? Don't I say so now?'" (153-4). "'Have you heard these read?' he then demanded of the honest man.
 * Again, Riderhood is exhibiting a surprising agency in asking Eugene for his name and address. But Eugene obliges, though doesn't deign to speak it, and instead carelessly tosses Riderhood his card -- a literary document that requires Riderhood to read it.  And he does read it, albeit very slowly and with a little trouble, which only seems to accentuate the disparity of their classes.
 * Riderhood is agitated in this exchange with Mortimer because he is being told that his suspicion isn't enough to truly confirm or prove that Gaffer killed Harmon. Riderhood, in his simple understanding of the law, believes once it's in writing or spoken aloud, then it is true.  While he's willing to lie and thus be carless with his words, it's interesting that he expects those words to bind in the legal sense.

'No,' said Riderhood.

'Then you had better hear them.' And so read them aloud, in an official manner.

'Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring here and the evidence you mean to give?' he asked when he had finished reading.

'They are. They are as correct,' returned Mr. Riderhood, 'as I am. I can't say more than that for 'em'" (160).
 * At this point, Riderhood, Mortimer, and Eugene are at the police station to show the inspector the notes. The Inspector asks if Riderhood has been read the notes and he says he hasn't.  But once they are read, Riderhood agrees they are true in a kind of tricky, circular admission of sorts that the notes are as true as what he has said -- which undoubtedly means they aren't true at all.  Thus, Riderhood proves himself to be a somewhat skilled manipulator of language.