difficulty and danger.

Not that he calculated upon

danger, or was deterred in his acts of daring by fear; and the more others attempted to imitate him, the more anxious was he to excel. It was about this time that an event occurred which he has never forgotten, which, indeed, he has often related in public as illustrating the word of our Lord, "One shall be taken, and the other left."

One summer's day, while attending to some pitch that was being boiled on the shore of the river, several of his companions came down to bathe. The tide was fast ebbing out, and the shore was getting dry; however, fearing the police, they got into a coal-barge and undressed themselves. There was an artificial bed where this barge lay, and at the outside a campshear or kind of wooden quay, beyond which was deep water. One by one the lads got into the water, on the side where it was shallow; but one who was more venturesome than the rest, named Larney Holmes, an older lad than Ned, made for the stern, where a rope hung over the side of the barge. Larney was one of those fierce young spirits whom no discipline could tame, and had gained an unenviable notoriety in Rotherhithe as an incorrigible thief, liar, and blackguard; even his own associates both feared and disliked him, although he was regarded as their leader. Knowing he could not swim, they entreated him not to go outside the campshear; but he only answered with a volley of oaths, requesting them to leave him alone. They ran towards him as he lowered himself by the rope over the side of the barge, they persuaded and threatened, and warned him ; but his only reply was, "I'll chance it; if I don't, I'll be Letting go

the rope with one of his hands, he began to search for the campshear, but in vain; and while he was thus clinging to the rope with one hand he grew alarmed, and, endeavouring with both hands to haul himself up again, the rope slipped, and he fell into the water, and sank to the bottom. The tide was running cut very strong, and carried him into greater depths. Immediately the cry was raised, "A lad overboard!" The watermen at the

stairs were lounging about, some sheltering themselves from the intense heat, while others were asleep in their boats. The cry for help aroused them all, including Ned, who, leaving his pitch pot, ran hurriedly to the scene. When he arrived there, he found that Larney had sunk a second time; and as he perceived two fingers of a man's hand on the surface of the water, Ned would not wait to take off his clothes, but plunged into the river, and diving beneath, seized the drowning lad as he was again sinking. The moment Larney felt the touch of his rescuer's hand, he laid hold of him, placed his arms and legs around Ned's, leaving him powerless either to help himself or Larney. It was a critical moment, requiring great self-possession, determination, and skill, and a desperate effort, which only a strong man could make. But Ned was equal to it. He struggled to get his legs free, and having succeeded, though with great difficulty, he made another effort to disengage himself from the lad's death hug, and as he was losing his consciousness his body was seen to rise to the surface. The watermen seized him by his hair, and dragged him, in an insensible state, to a boat; but Larney was drowned.

The excitement of the crowd that had gathered on the

shore was intense; every one admired and applauded the heroism of young Wright, and the anxiety for his recovery from insensibility was universal. His father felt proud of his son, and listened with no little satisfaction to the applause which greeted his bravery. As for Ned, even in the lowest state of debasement into which he descended, he sympathised with human suffering, and was always ready to display his skill and strength in rescuing any one from perilous positions. He is not the first daring sinner who has put all the better enthusiasm of his nature into the service of God when that service has been preferred to zeal for Satan. As a good soldier of Christ, he has learnt to "endure hardness," and to fight bravely for the good and the true.

Larney's body was not recovered until three days afterwards, and among the followers of his remains to the grave was he who, but for the merciful Providence that watched over his life, might have been buried by the side of the drowned man. His high spirits, however, were not tamed; and while others felt impressed with the solemnity of the occasion, Ned felt no fear. When he was told by a companion that it was through God's mercy he had not been drowned as well as Larney, he replied with the utmost indifference, "If the fool had not let go the rope, he would have been here now." A more "darkened understanding" no man, surely, ever had; alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that was in him, because of the blindness of his heart, the man who had thus been brought into close proximity with death still continued to have no fear of God before his eyes. He was as resolute a sinner as ever.

Chapter Third.

BURGLARY AND ESCAPE.- ANOTHER ROBBERY AND IMPRISONMENT. ON THE TREADMILL IN OLD BRIXTON PRISON.-A CUNNING TRICK.-RELEASE.-MORE BAD COMPANIONS.-A SOCIAL PEST.-BECOMES A SOLDIER, AND ESCAPES.-A PRIZE FIGHT. IMPRISONED IN NEWGATE FOR FELONY.-TURNING 66 HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS."-CONTRIVANCE

SECRETLY

TO COMMUNICATE WITH A FELLOW-PRISONER.-A FATHER'S

LOVE.