thing figure. "It's me--it's Ned
Taylor. Lord help me! I've done for myself. Oh, help me out for
pity's sake!" With great difficulty, and with terrible suffering to the
poor wretch himself, they contrived at last to draw him up, and to place
him with his back against a heap of fallen masonry.

"What's to be done now?" asked the sergeant. "Leave him to us," replied
Bradly; "we'll get him home. I see how it is: he's one of these chaps
as has been taking part in this sad business, and in his hurry to get
off he has tumbled into this old well and injured himself. We'll look
after him, poor fellow; he shall be properly cared for. Good-night,
sergeant, and thank you for your timely help."

When the police had departed with their prisoner, Bradly went to the
wounded man and asked him if he thought he could walk home with help;
but the only reply was a groan. "He's badly hurt, I can see," said
Thomas; "we must make a stretcher out of any suitable stuff we can find,
and carry him home between us. The Lord's been very gracious to us so
far in this business, and I don't doubt but he'll bring good out of this
evil." So they made a litter of boughs and stray pieces of plank, and
set out across the fields for Crossbourne.

"Stay a bit, Jim," whispered Bradly to James Barnes; "lend me your
lantern. Go forward now, and I'll join you in a minute." He was soon
back again, having brought the jar of tar from the vault, about which
and its purpose he had heard from Foster while the police were searching
the place. "I must keep this," he said, "in my Surgery; it'll do
capitally to give an edge to a lesson." And it may be here said that
the jar was in due time placed on a bracket in Bradly's private room,
and labelled in large red letters, "Drunkards' Ointment,"--giving Thomas
many an opportunity of speaking a forcible word against evil
companionship to those who sought his help and counsel.

But to return to the party at the old Hall. Long and weary seemed that
walk home, specially to the wounded man. At last they reached the town,
and carried the sufferer to his miserable dwelling, with cheery words to
his poor wife, and a promise from Bradly to send the doctor at once, and
that he would call himself next day and see how he was going on.

Then the three friends hastened at once to Foster's house, that they
might be the first to acquaint his wife with her husband's peril and
deliverance. Never was thanksgiving prayer u