spoil with him, and leaves desolation and wailing behind.

Such a flood as this following a heavy thunderstorm devastated the valley of the Irk on the 17th of August, 1799.

Well was it then for the tannery and those houses on the bank of the Irk which had their foundations in the solid rock; for the waters surged and roared at their base, and over pleasant meadows -a wide-spread turbulent sea, with here and there an island of refuge which the day before had been a lofty mound.

The flood of the previous autumn, when a coach and horses had been swept down the Irwell, and men and women were drowned, was as nothing to this.

The tannery-yard, high as it was above the bed of the Irk, and solid as was its embankment, was threatened with invasion. The surging water roared and beat against its masonry, and licked its coping with frothy tongue and lip, like a hungry giant greedy for fresh food. Men with thick clogs and hide-bound legs, leathern gloves and aprons, were hurrying to and fro with barrows and bark-boxes, for the reception of the valuable hides which their

Already the insatiate flood bore testimony to its ruthless greed. Hanks of yarn, pieces of calico, hay, uptorn bushes, planks, chairs, boxes, dog-kennels, and hen-coops, a shattered chest of drawers, pots and pans, had swept past, swirling and eddying in the flood, which by this time spread like a vast lake over the opposite lands, and had risen within three feet of the arch of Scotland Bridge, and hardly left a trace where the mill-dam chafed it commonly.

| squealing pig, went racing with the current, now rising towards the footway of Tanner's Bridge.

Every window of every house upon the banks was crowded with anxious heads: for flooded Scotland rose like an island from the watery waste, and their own cellars were fast filling.

There had been voices calling to each other from window to window all the morning; but now from window to window, from house to house, rang one

re-duplicated shriek, which caused many of the busy tanners to quit their work, and rush to the water's edge.

To their horror, a painted wooden cradle, which had crossed the deeply-submerged dam in safety, was floating foot - foremost down to destruction, with an infant calmly sleeping in its bed, the very motion of the waters having seemingly lulled it to sounder repose!

"Good Lord! it's a choilt!" exclaimed Simon Clegg, the oldest tanner in the yard. "Lend a hand here, for th' sake o' th' childer at whoam.”

Half a dozen hooks and plungers were outstretched, even while he spoke; but the longest was lamentably too short to arrest the approaching cradle in its course, and the unconscious babe seemed doomed.

With frantic haste Simon Clegg rushed on to Tanner's Bridge, followed by a boy; and there, with hook and plunger, they met the cradle as it drifted towards them, afraid of over-balancing it even in their attempt to save.

It swerved, and almost upset; but Simon dexterously caught his hook within the wooden hood, and drew the frail bark and its living freight close to the bridge.

The boy, and a man named Cooper, lying flat on the bridge, then clutched at it with extended hands, raised it carefully from the turbid water, and drew it safely between the open rails to the footway, amidst the shouts and hurrahs of breathless and excited spectators.

The babe was screaming terribly. The shock when first the hook stopped the progress of the cradle had disturbed its dreams, and its little fat arms were stretched out piteously as strange faces looked down upon it instead of the mother's familiar countenance.

Wrapping the patchwork quilt around it, to keep it from contact with his wet sleeves and apron, Simon tenderly as a woman lifted the infant in his rough arms, and strove to comfort it, but in vain. His beard of three days' growth was as a rasp to its soft skin, and the closer he caressed the more it screamed.

The men from the tannery came crowding round him.

"What dost tha mean to do wi' th' babby?" asked the man Cooper of old Simon. "Aw'd tak' it whoam to mi misses, but th' owd lass is nowt to be depended on, an' wur cross as two sticks when oi only axed fur mi baggin to bring to wark wi' mi this mornin'," added he, with rueful remembrance of the scolding wife on his hearth.

"Neay, lad, aw'll not trust th' poor choilt to thy Sally. It 'ud be loike chuckin' it out o' th' wayter into the fire (Hush-a-bye, babby). Aw'll just tak' it to ar Bess, and hoo'll cuddle it oop, an' gi' it summut to sup, till we find its own mammy,'

answered Simon, leaving the bridge. "Bring th' cradle alung, Jack"-to the boy-"Bess 'll want it. We'n noan o' that tackle at ar place. Hush-abye, hush-a-bye, babby."

But the little thing, missing its natural protector, and half stifled in the swathing quilt, only screamed the louder; and Simon, notwithstanding his kind heart, was truly glad when his daughter Bess, who had witnessed the rescue from their own window, met him at the tannery gate, and relieved him of his struggling charge.

"Si thi, Bess, here's a God-send fur thi, a poor little babby fur thi to tend an' be koind to till them it belungs to come a-seekin' fur it," said he to the young woman; "but thah mun give it summat better than cowd wayter; it's had too mich o' that a'ready."

"That a' will, poor darlin'," responded she, kissing the babe's velvet cheeks as, sensible of a change of nurses, it nestled to her breast; "Eh! but there'll be sore hearts for this blessed babby somewheere;" and she turned up the narrow passage which led at once from the tan-yard and the bridge, stilling and soothing the little cast-away as adroitly as an experienced nurse.

"Now, luk thi, lad," Simon remarked to Cooper, "isna it fair wonderful heaw that babby taks to ar Bess? But it's just a way hoo has, an' theer isna a fractious choilt i' a' ar yard but 'll be quiet wi' Bess."

Cooper looked after her, nodded an assent, and sighed as if he wished some one in another yard had the same soothing way with her.

But the voice of the raging water had not stilled like that of the rescued infant.

Back went the two men to their task, and worked away with a will to carry hides, bark, and implements to places of security. And as they hurried to and fro with loads on back or barrow, up, up, inch by inch, foot by foot, the swelling flood rose higher and higher, till lapping the foot-bridge, curling over the embankment, it drove the sturdy tanners back, flung itself into the pits, and in many a swirling eddy, washed tan, and hair, and skins into the

common current.

Not so much, however, went into its seething cauldron as might have been had the men worked with less vigour; and quick to recognise the value of ready service, Mr. Clough led his drenched and weary workmen to the Skinners' Arms, in Long Millgate, and ordered a supply of ale and bread and cheese to be served out to them.

At the door of the public-house, where he left the workmen to the enjoyment of this impromptu feast, he encountered Simon Clegg.

The kind fellow had taken a hasty run to his own tenement, "just to see heaw ar Bess an' th' babby get on," and he brought back the intelligence that it was 66 a lad, an' as good as goold."

"Whoi, th' poor little lad's got noather feyther nor mother, an' thah's lost booth o' thi lads. Mebbe it's a Godsend, feyther, after a,' as you said'n to me ;" and she kissed it tenderly. "Eh, wench!"-interposed Matthew, but she went on without heeding him.

"There's babby things laid by i' lavender i' thoose drawers as hasna seen dayleet sin ar Joe wur a toddler, an' they'll just come handy. An' if bread's dear an' meal's dear, we mun just ate less on it arsels, an' there'll be moore for the choilt. He'll pay yo back, feyther, aw know, when yo'r too owd to wark."

"An' aw con do 'bout 'bacca, lass. If the orphan's granny wur too preawd to ax help o' th' parish, aw'll be too preawd to send her pratty grandchoilt theer."

And so, to Matthew Cooper's amazement, it was settled.

But the extra labour and self-denial it involved on the part of Bess neither Matthew nor Simon could estimate.

In the midst of the rabid scepticism and republicanism of the period, Simon Clegg was a staunch "Church and King" man, and, as a natural consequence, a stout upholder of their ordinances.

Regularly as the bell tolled in for Sunday morning service, he might be seen walking reverently down the aisle of the Old Church to his place in the free seats, with his neat, cheerful

looking daughter following him sometimes, but not always.

So regularly that the stout beadle missed him from his seat the Sunday after the inundation, and, meeting him in the churchyard a week later, sought to learn the why and wherefore.

The beadle of the parish church was an important personage in the eyes of Simon Clegg; and, somewhat proud of his notice, the little tanner related the incidents of that memorable flood-week to his querist, concluding with his adoption of the child.

The official h'md and h'ad, applauded the act, but shook his powdered head, and added sagely that it was "a great charge, a varry great charge." "Dun yo' think th' little un's bin baptised?" interrogated the beadle.

"Aw conno' tell; nob'dy couldn't tell nowt abeawt th' choilt, 'ut wur ony use to onybody. Bess an' me han talked it ower, an' we wur thinkin' o' bringin' it to be kirsened, to be on th' safe soide like. Aw reckon it wouldna do th' choilt ony harm to be kirsened twoice ower; an' 'twould be loike flingin' th' choilt's soul to Odd Scrat gin he wur no christened at o'. What dun yo' think'n?"

The beadle thought pretty much the same as Simon, and it was finally arranged that Simon should present the foundling for baptism in the course of the week.

IR PERTINAX (In warm resentment). Zounds! sir, I will not hear a word about it I insist upon it, you are wrong; you should have paid your court till my lord, and not have scrupled swallowing a bumper or twa, or twenty, till oblige him.

EGERTON. Sir, I did drink his toast in a bumper. SIR P. Yes, you did; but how, how? just as a bairn takes physic, with aversions and wry faces, which my lord observed: then, to mend the matter, the moment that he and the Colonel got intill a drunken dispute about religion, you slily slunged

away.

EGER. I thought, sir, it was time to go, when my lord insisted upon half-pint bumpers.

SIR P. Sir, that was not levelled at you, but at the Colonel, in order to try his bottom; but they aw agreed that you and I should drink out of sma' glasses.

EGER.

SIR P. But, zoons! sir, I tell you there was a necessity for your drinking more.

EGER. A necessity? in what respect, pray, sir? SIR P. Why, sir, I have a certain point to carry, independent of the lawyers, with my lord, in this agreement of your marriage; about which I am afraid we shall have a warm squabble; and therefore I wanted your assistance in it.

EGER. But when a man is intoxicated, would that have been a seasonable time to settle business, sir?

SIR P. The most seasonable, sir; for, sir, when my lord is in his cups, his suspicion is asleep, and his heart is aw jollity, fun, and guid fellowship : and, sir, can there be a happier moment than that for a bargain, or to settle a dispute with a friend ? What is it you shrug up your shoulders at, sir?

EGER. At my own ignorance, sir; for I understand neither the philosophy nor the morality of

SIR P. I know you do not, sir; and, what is