lt, Thomas Bradly
poured out his heart in prayer to God for a blessing on his poor friend,
and that he might truly give his heart and life to the Lord. "And now,
James," said Bradly, "I'll find you a job to go on with, and I'll speak
to the vicar, and you and yours shan't starve till we can set you on
your feet again."

James Barnes thanked his new friend most warmly, and was turning to the
door, but still lingered. Then he came back to the fire and sat down
again, and said, "Thomas, I've summat to tell you which I've been
wanting to mention to you for more nor a week, and yet I ain't had the
courage to come and say it like a man."

"Well, Jim, now's the time."

"Thomas," said the other sorrowfully, "I've done you a wrong, but I
didn't mean to do it; it's that drink as was at the bottom of it."

"Well, Jim," replied Bradly, smiling, "it can't have been much of a
wrong, I doubt, as I've never found it out."

"I don't know how that may be, Thomas, but you shall hear. You remember
the morning when poor Joe was found cut to pieces on the line just below
the foot-bridge?"

"Yes, Jim, I remember it well; it was the day before Christmas-day."

"Well, Thomas, it were the day before that. I was on the platform in
the evening, waiting for the half-past five o'clock train to come in
from the north. It were ten minutes or more late, as most of the trains
was that day. When it stopped at our station, a gent wrapped up in a
lot of things, with a fur cap on his head, a pair of blue spectacles
over his eyes, and a stout red scarf round his neck, jumps out of a
third-class carriage like a shot, and lays hold of my arm, and takes me
on one side, and says, `I want you to do a job for me,' and he puts a
florin into my hand; then he says, `Do you know Thomas Bradly?' `Ay,'
says I; `I know him well.' `Then take this bag,' says he, `and this
letter to his house as soon as you're off duty. Be sure you don't fail.
You knows the man I mean; he's got a sister Jane as lives with him.'
`All right,' says I. There weren't no more time, so he jumps back into
the carriage, and nods to me, and I nods back to him, and the train were
gone. It were turned six o'clock when I left the station yard, and the
hands was all turning, out from the mills, so I takes the bag--it were a
small carpet-bag, very shabby-looking--and the letter in my pocket.
Now, I ought, by rights, to have gone with it at once to your house, and
I shouldn't have had an