“But come, Sam, that story,” said Harry and I coaxingly, pressing upon him, and pulling him down into his seat in the corner.
“Lordy massy, these 'ere young uns!” said Sam. “There's never no contentin' on 'em: ye tell 'em one story, and they jest swallows it as a dog does a gob o' meat; and they're all ready for another. What do ye want to hear now?”
Now, the fact was, that Sam's stories had been told us so often, that they were all arranged and ticketed in our minds. We knew every word in them, and could set him right if he varied a hair from the usual track; and still the interest in them was unabated. Still we shivered, and clung to his knee, at the mysterious parts, and felt gentle, cold chills run down our spines at appropriate places. We were always in the most receptive and sympathetic condition. To-night, in particular, was one of those thundering stormy ones, when the winds appeared to be holding a perfect mad carnival over my grandfather's house. They yelled and squealed round the corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling and roaring down chimney; they shook and tattled the buttery-door and the sinkroom-door and the cellar-door and the chamber-door, with a constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at every door were a cold, discontented spirit, tired of the chill outside, and longing for the warmth and comfort within.
“Wal, boys,” said Sam confidentially, “what'll ye have?”
“Tell us 'Come down, come down!'” we both shouted with one voice. This was, in our mind, an “A No. 1” among Sam's stories.
“Ye mus'n't be frightened now,” said Sam paternally.
“Oh, no! we ar'n't frightened ever,” said we both in one breath.
“Not when ye go down the cellar arter cider?” said Sam with severe scrutiny. “Ef ye should be down cellar, and the candle should go out, now?”
“I ain't,” said I: “I ain't afraid of any thing. I never knew what it was to be afraid in my life.”
“Wal, then,” said Sam, “I'll tell ye. This 'ere's what Cap'n Eb Sawin told me when I was a boy about your bigness, I reckon.