."

Will descended the steps, and found the man leaning against the dock-wall.

"Now, friend, we'll climb these stairs."

"I will--help you--hic--yes--up."

"You are very kind, but let me help you first. Now go it! Tough! You don't
gain a peg."

"You'll have me--hic--over--friend."

"Have _you_ over! It's the other way, man."

"Well--shay! It's all right, aint it?--hic."

"O yes! We wont quarrel about it. Look here, folks! haven't you got any
thing up there we could steer him by--a rope, perhaps, to which he could
cling? The water has risen and come up here, and it's not comfortable in
one's stocking-feet. Wish my fire company was here! We would make short
work of it."

"Shall I ring the church bell?" asked Charlie, excitedly.

"O don't, don't!"

"Here's a rope," said Aunt Stanshy.

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Charlie, "and we will pull him in."

"We might do that, or at least help," said Aunt Stanshy, laughing.

"Yesh--hic--pull him in," said the man in the dock.

"We will fasten the rope about you, friend, and they'll draw on it, and
perhaps you could hold on to it and draw yourself up, and I will shove you
behind. Now, all, a good try!"

Will was now shoving, Aunt Stanshy and Charlie hauling, while the man
tried to grasp the sides of the steps; and so, out of the slime and the
mist and the night, up into the light, and then into Aunt Stanshy's barn,
came the face of--old Tim Tyler!

"Horrors!" said Aunt Stanshy, startled by this unexpected sight of the
second mud-turtle. Her face wore, indeed, a look of horror at first, and
then the expression changed to one of pity.

Over the door-sill he crawled, and then looking up, he said, in a drunken,
but abashed, humiliated way, "Stanshy, is it you? Real--hic--sorry to
trouble--hic--you."

Aunt Stanshy made no audible reply, but stood looking away as if into
distant years. She was recalling the words uttered by Tim long ago, when
he vowed that he would see himself "a-drownin' in that dock first afore
he'd ask a favor of her." "He has come up to his word," she said to
herself, and then she bowed her troubled face.

"Well, now," said Will, looking round with a worried face, "what next?"

"Guesh I'll--hic--go home now. Thank you, sir," he said, bowing to Will.
"Thank you, Stanshy," and he bowed still lower.

"Timothy," said Aunt Stanshy, calling him by the old name, "I wouldn't
turn a dog into the street a night like this, and you had better stay
here. I wi