r
life?"

The navvy was certainly not a pretty sight. His muscular arms and legs
were all a-sprawl and his head hung back at a strange angle to his body,
so that his fiery red beard pointed upwards, exposing all the thick
sinewy throat beneath it. His eyes were half open and looked bleared
and unhealthy, while his thick lips puffed out with a whistling sound at
every expiration. His dirty brown coat was thrown open, and out of one
of the pockets protruded a short thick cudgel with a leaden head.

John Girdlestone picked it out and tried it in the air. "I think I
could kill an ox with this," he said.

"Don't wave it about _my_ head," cried Ezra. "As you stand in the
firelight brandishing that stick in your long arms you are less
attractive than usual."

John Girdlestone smiled and replaced the cudgel in the sleeper's pocket.
"Wake up, Burt," he cried, shaking him by the arm. "It's half-past
eight."

The navvy started to his feet with an oath and then fell back into his
chair, staring round him vacantly, at a loss as to where he might be.
His eye fell upon the bottle of Hollands, which was now nearly empty,
and he held out his hand to it with an exclamation of recognition.

"I've been asleep, guv'nor," he said hoarsely. "Must have a dram to set
me straight. Did you say it was time for the job."

"We have made arrangements by which she will be out by the withered oak
at nine o'clock."

"That's not for half an hour," cried Burt, in a surly voice. "You need
not have woke me yet."

"We'd better go out there now. She may come rather before the time"

"Come on, then!" said the navvy, buttoning up his coat and rolling a
ragged cravat round his throat. "Who is a-comin' with me?"

"We shall both come," answered John Girdlestone firmly. "You will need
help to carry her to the railway line."

"Surely Burt can do that himself," Ezra remarked. "She's not so very
heavy."

Girdlestone drew his son aside. "Don't be so foolish, Ezra," he said.
"We can't trust the half-drunken fellow. It must be done with the
greatest carefulness and precision, and no traces left. Our old
business watchword was to overlook everything ourselves, and we shall
certainly do so now."

"It's a horrible affair!" Ezra said, with a shudder. "I wish I was out
of it."

"You won't think that to-morrow morning when you realize that the firm
is saved and no one the wiser. He has gone on. Don't lose sight of
him."

They both hurr