“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 will get you some clothes, and, Will, perhaps you will see that he gets off these.”

“And bring me one of my suits, too, please.  And if Charlie will bring me a basin and some water, we will wash here.  I will look after my man here.  Bring my slippers, please.”

“Where’s—­hic—­your boots?”

“O, they concluded to stay in the dock.”

“I’ll—­get—­you another pair—­hic.”

“I may find them at low-water and by daylight.”

Tim Tyler stayed at Aunt Stanshy’s that night The next morning he was in his right mind, and, thanking Aunt Stanshy, said he must go.  Then he lingered, twirling in his hands the old felt hat that was his daily companion, though a much abused one.