“Eh, sir, it was roaring!-roaring as if it was mad with rage! And every now and then it would come down the chimley like out of a gun, and blow the smoke and a’most the fire into the middle of the housekeeper’s room. For the housekeeper had been giving me my supper. I called her auntie, then; and didn’t know a bit that she wasn’t my aunt really. I was at that time a kind of a under-gamekeeper upon the place, and slept over the stable. But I fared of the best, for I was a favourite with the old woman—I suppose because I had given her plenty of trouble in my time. That’s always the way, sir.—Well, as I was a-saying, when the wind stopped for a moment, down came the rain with a noise that sounded like a regiment of cavalry on the turnpike road t’other side of the hill. And then up the wind got again, and swept the rain away, and took it all in its own hand again, and went on roaring worse than ever. ‘You’ll be wet afore you get across the yard, Samuel,’ said auntie, looking very prim in her long white apron, as she sat on the other side of the little round table before the fire, sipping a drop of hot rum and water, which she always had before she went to bed. ‘You’ll be wet to the skin, Samuel,’ she said. ‘Never mind,’ says I. ‘I’m not salt, nor yet sugar; and I’ll be going, auntie, for you’ll be wanting your bed.’—‘Sit ye still,’ said she. ‘I don’t want my bed yet.’ And there she sat, sipping at her rum and water; and there I sat, o’ the other side, drinking the last of a pint of October, she had gotten me from the cellar—for I had been out in the wind all day. ‘It was just such a night as this,’ said she, and then stopped again.—But I’m wearying you, sir, with my long story.” “Not in the least,” I answered. “Quite the contrary. Pray tell it out your own way. You won’t tire me, I assure you.” So the old man went on.