they
couldn't get him out to meetin'; and, when a man neglects means o' grace
and sanctuary privileges, there ain't no sayin' _what_ he'll do next.
Why, boys, jist think on't!--an immortal crittur lyin' round loose
all day Sunday, and not puttin' on so much as a clean shirt, when all
'spectable folks has on their best close, and is to meetin' worshippin'
the Lord! What can you spect to come of it, when he lies idlin' round in
his old week-day close, fishing, or some sich, but what the Devil should
be arter him at last, as he was arter old Cack?"

Here Sam winked impressively to my grandfather in the opposite corner,
to call his attention to the moral which he was interweaving with his
narrative.

"Wal, ye see, Cap'n Eb he told me, that when he come to them bars and
looked up, and saw the dark a-comin' down, and the storm a-thickenin'
up, he felt that things was gettin' pretty consid'able serious. There
was a dark piece o' woods on ahead of him inside the bars; and he knew,
come to get in there, the light would give out clean. So he jest thought
he'd take the hoss out o' the team, and go ahead a little, and see where
he was. So he driv his oxen up ag'in the fence, and took out the hoss,
and got on him, and pushed along through the woods, not rightly knowin'
where he was goin'.

"Wal, afore long he see a light through the trees; and, sure enough, he
come out to Cack Sparrock's old mill.

"It was a pretty consid'able gloomy sort of a place, that are old mill
was. There was a great fall of water that come rushin' down the rocks,
and fell in a deep pool; and it sounded sort o' wild and lonesome: but
Cap'n Eb he knocked on the door with his whip-handle, and got in.

"There, to be sure, sot old Cack beside a great blazin' fire, with his
rum-jug at his elbow. He was a drefful fellow to drink, Cack was! For
all that, there was some good in him, for he was pleasant-spoken and
'bliging; and he made the cap'n welcome.

"'Ye see, Cack,' said Cap'n Eb, 'I 'm off my road, and got snowed up
down by your bars,' says he.

"'Want ter know!' says Cack. 'Calculate you'll jest have to camp down
here till mornin',' says he.

"Wal, so old Cack he got out his tin lantern, and went with Cap'n Eb
back to the bars to help him fetch along his critturs. He told him he
could put 'em under the mill-shed. So they got the critturs up to the
shed, and got the cart under; and by that time the storm was awful.

"But Cack he made a great roarin'