exceptions, were engaged in it, and showed me two of the missing bales
of cloth--the cloth, you remember, sir, of which there was such a large
quantity stolen four weeks ago, and for which the company has had to
pay. I find that the chief signalman, Davis, is as bad as the rest. It
was his wife that gave me the information in a moment of
over-confidence."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Sharp, in some surprise; "and what of Sam Natly and
Garvie?"

"They're both of 'em innocent, sir," said Blunt. "I did suspect 'em at
one time, but I have seen and heard enough to convince me that they have
no hand in the business. Natly has been goin' about the station a good
deal of late, because the wife of one of the men is a friend of his
wife, and used to go up to nurse her sometimes when she was ill. As to
Garvie, of course he knows as well as everybody else that some of the
men there must be thieves, else goods would not disappear from that
station as they do, but _his_ frequent visits there are for the purpose
of reclaiming Davis, who, it seems, is an old playmate of his."

"Reclaiming Davis!" exclaimed Sharp.

"Yes, an' it's my opinion that it'll take a cleverer fellow than him to
reclaim Davis, for he's one of the worst of the lot; but Garvie is real
earnest. I chanced to get behind a hedge one day when they were
together, and overheard 'em talkin' about these robberies and other
matters, and you would have thought, sir, that the fireman was a regular
divine. He could quote Scripture quite in a stunnin' way, sir; an'
_did_ seem badly cut up when his friend told him that it was of no use
talkin', for it was too late for _him_ to mend."

"Has Garvie, then, been aware all this time that Davis is one of the
thieves, and kept it secret?" asked Sharp.

"No, sir," replied Blunt. "Davis denied that he had any hand in the
robberies when Garvie asked him. It was about drink that he was
pleadin' with him so hard. You know we have suspected him of that too,
of late; but from what I heard he must be a regular toper. Garvie was
tryin' to persuade him to become a total abstainer. Says he to him,
`You know, Davis, that whatever may be true as to the general question
of abstaining from strong drink, _your_ only chance of bein' delivered
lies in total abstinence, because the thing has become a _disease_. I
know and believe that Christianity would save you from the power of
drink, but, depend upon it, that it would do so in the way of ind