The last time I came by here, it was a little bit arter daylight down, rainin cats and dogs and as dark as Egypt; so, thinks I, I'll jist turn in here for shelter to Squire Bill Blake's. Well, I knocks away at the front door, till I thought I'd a split it in; but arter a rappin a while to no purpose and findin no one come, I gropes my way round to the back door, and opens it, and feelin all along the partition for the latch of the keepin room without finding it, I knocks agin, when someone from inside calls out "Walk." Thinks I, I don't cleverly know whether that indicates "walk in" or "walk out," it's plaguy short metre, that's a fact; but I'll see anyhow. Well, arter gropin about a while, at last I got hold of the string and lifted the latch and walked in, and there sot old Marm Blake, close into one corner of the chimbley fire-place, a see-sawin in a rockin-chair, and a half-grown black house-help, half asleep in tother corner, a scroudgin up over the embers. Who be you, said Marm Blake, for I can't see you. A stranger, said I. Beck, says she ... get up this minit and stir the coals till I see the man. Arter the coals were stirred into a blaze, the old lady surveyed me from head to foot, then she axed me my name, and where I came from, where I was agoin, and what my business was. I guess, said she, you must be reasonable wet, sit to the fire and dry yourself, or mayhap your health may be endamnified pr'aps. So I sot down, and we soon got pretty considerably well acquainted, and quite sociable like, and her tongue, when it fairly waked up, began to run like a mill race when the gate's up.... Well, when all was sot to rights and the fire made up, the old lady began to apologise for having no candles; she said she'd had a grand tea party the night afore, and used them all up, and a whole sight of vittals too; the old man hadn't been well since, and had gone to bed airly. But, says she, I do wish with all my heart you had a come last night, for we had a most a special supper--punkin-pies and dough-nuts and apple-sarce, and a roast goose stuffed with Indian puddin, and a pig's harslet stewed in molasses and onions, and I don't know what all; and the fore part of to-day folks called to finish. I actilly have nothin left to set afore you; for it was none o' your skim-milk parties, but superfine uppercrust real jam, and we made clean work of it. But I'll make some tea anyhow for you, and perhaps after that, said she, alterin of her tone, perhaps you'll expound the Scriptures, for it's one while since I've heerd them laid open powerfully.... The tea-kettle was accordingly put on, and some lard fried into oil and poured into a tumbler; which, with the aid of an inch of cotton-wick, served as a makeshift for a candle. 32. A STRUGGLE, NOT OF PRINCIPLES, BUT OF RACES (1838). =Source.=--Lord Durham's _Report on the Affairs of North America_, edited by Sir C. P. Lucas. Vol. II. Oxford, 1912.