We asked him many questions about the old people, and found he knew all the family histories and told them with great satisfaction.  We found he had his pet stories, and it must have been gratifying to have an entirely new and fresh audience.  He was adroit in leading the conversation around to a point where the stories would come in appropriately, and we helped him as much as possible.  In a small neighborhood all the people know each other’s stories and experiences by heart, and I have no doubt the old captain had been snubbed many times on beginning a favorite anecdote.  There was a story which he told us that first day, which he assured us was strictly true, and it is certainly a remarkable instance of the influence of one mind upon another at a distance.  It seems to me worth preserving, at any rate; and as we heard it from the old man, with his solemn voice and serious expression and quaint gestures, it was singularly impressive.

“When I was a youngster,” said Captain Lant, “I was an orphan, and I was bound out to old Mr. Peletiah Daw’s folks, over on the Ridge Road.  It was in the time of the last war, and he had a nephew, Ben Dighton, a dreadful high-strung, wild fellow, who had gone off on a privateer.  The old man, he set everything by Ben; he would disoblige his own boys any day to please him.  This was in his latter days, and he used to have spells of wandering and being out of his head; and he used to call for Ben and talk sort of foolish about him, till they would tell him to stop.  Ben never did a stroke of work for him, either, but he was a handsome fellow, and had a way with him when he was good-natured.  One night old Peletiah had been very bad all day and was getting quieted down, and it was after supper; we sat round in the kitchen, and he lay in the bedroom opening out.  There were some pitch-knots blazing, and the light shone in on the bed, and all of a sudden something made me look up and look in; and there was the old man setting up straight, with his eyes shining at me like a cat’s.  ’Stop ’em!’ says he; ’stop ’em!’ and his two sons run in then to catch hold of him, for they thought he was beginning with one of his wild spells; but he fell back on the bed and began to cry like a baby.  ‘O, dear me,’ says he, ’they’ve hung him,—­hung him right up to the yard-arm!  O, they oughtn’t to have done it; cut him down quick! he didn’t think; he means well, Ben does; he was hasty.  O my God, I can’t bear to see him swing round by the neck!  It’s poor Ben hung up to the yard-arm.  Let me alone, I say!’ Andrew and Moses, they were holding him with all their might, and they were both hearty men, but he ’most got away from them once or twice, and he screeched and howled like a mad creatur’, and then he would cry again like a child.  He was worn out after a while and lay back quiet, and said over and over, ‘Poor Ben!’ and ‘hung at the yard-arm’; and he told the neighbors next day, but nobody noticed him much, and he seemed to forget it as his mind come