“‘Can’t you get out?’ I whispered back.

“‘No,’ says he, ’I’m afraid I can’t, unless you run up to the linhay an’ fetch a rope.’

“It was no more I stayed to hear, but ran up hot-foot to the linhay and back inside the minute, with the waggon rope.

“‘Hold the end,’ he panted, ‘and throw with all your strength.’  And I threw, but the rope fell short.  Twice again I threw, but missed each cast by a yard and more.  He wouldn’t let me come near the mud.

“Then I fell to runnin’ to an’ fro on the edge o’ the firm ground, an’ sobbin’ between my teeth because I could devise nothin’.  And all the while he was fightin’ hard.

“‘I’ll run an’ call father an’ Job,’ says I.

“’Hush’ee now!  Be you crazed?  Do you want to let ’em know all?’

“‘But it’ll kill you, dear, won’t it?’

“‘Likely it will,’ said he.  Then, after a while of battlin’, he whispers again, ’Little girl, I don’t want to die.  Death is a cold end.  But I reckon you shall save me an’ your name as well.  Take the rope, coil it as you run, and hang it back in the linhay, quick!  Then run you to the hen-house an’ bring me all the eggs you can find.  Be quick and ax no questions, for it’s little longer I can hold up.  It’s above my waist,’ he says.

“I didn’ know what he meant, but ran for my life to the linhay, and hung up the rope, an’ then to the hen-house.  I could tell prety well where to find a dozen eggs or more in the dark, an’ in three minutes I’d groped about an’ gathered ’em in the lap o’ my dress.  Then back I ran.  I could just spy ’en—­a dark spot out there in the mud.

“‘How many?’ he axed, an’ his voice was like a rook’s.

“‘A dozen, or near.’

“’Toss ’em here.  Don’t come too nigh, an’ shy careful, so’s I can catch.’

“I stepped down pretty nigh to the brim o’ the mud an’ tossed ’em out to him.  Three fell short in my hurry, but the rest he got hold of somehow.

“‘That’s right,’ he calls, hoarse and low, ’they’ll think egg-stealin’ nateral to a low family like our’n.  Now back to your room—­undress—­an’ cry out, sayin’, there’s a man shoutin’ for help down ’pon the mud; and, dear, be quick!  When you wave your candle twice at the window, I’ll shout like a Trojan.’

“An’ I did it, Job; for the cruelty in a fearful woman passes knowledge.  An’ you rescued ‘en an’ he went to gaol.  For he said ’twas the only way.  An’ his mother took it as quite reasonable that her husband’s son should take to the bad—­’twas the way of all them Trudgeons.  Father to son, they was of no account.  Egg-stealin’ was just the little hole-an’-corner wickedness that ’d come nateral to ’em.”

“I rec’lect now,” said Job Lear very slowly, “that the wain-rope was wet i’ my hands when I unhitched ‘en that night from the hook, an’ I wondered, it bein’ the end of a week’s dryth.  But in the dark an’ the confusion o’ savin’ the wastrel’s life it slipped my thoughts, else—­”