to the vault. It is a dangerous pitfall."

They both hurried to the place, and found the boy lying on the steps
leading down to the vault, but motionless, and when they succeeded
in lifting him up, he was quite unconscious, having evidently struck
his head against the mouth of the vault.

"We must carry him home between us," said Mrs. Woodford. "That will
be better than rousing Miles Gateward, and making a coil."

Dr. Woodford, however, took the entire weight, which he declared to
be very slight. "No one would think the poor child fourteen years
old," he observed, "yet did he not speak of a second seven?"

"True," said Mrs. Woodford, "he was born after the Great Fire of
London, which, as I have good cause to know, was in the year '66."

There was still little sign of revival about the boy when he had
been carried into the Parsonage, undressed and laid in the Doctor's
own bed, only a few moans when he was handled, and on his thin,
sharp features there was a piteous look of sadness entirely unlike
his ordinary expression of malignant fun, and which went to the kind
hearts of the Doctor and Mrs. Woodford. After exhausting their own
remedies, as soon as the early daylight was available Dr. Woodford
called up a couple of servants, and sent one into Portsmouth for a
surgeon, and another to Oakwood to the parents.

The doctor was the first to arrive, though not till the morning was
well advanced. He found that three ribs were broken against the
edge of the stone step, and the head severely injured, and having