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