"I say, squire," exclaimed Tom Gladding, a tall, awkward, good-natured looking fellow, with legs sprawling out, and heels on the top of the stove, addressing himself to a man in a black suit, rather better dressed than the others, "what do you think of this here rusty old Father Holden cut up last night at Conference?" Squire Miller, as one in authority, and who might be called to adjudicate upon the case, and for other reasons of his own, was not disposed to commit himself, he, therefore, cautiously replied, _more Novo Anglicano_, by asking another question, "Were you there, Mr. Gladding?" "No," said Tom, laughing; "the old folks used to make me go so regular, when I was a boy, I guess I've done my part. So after a while I give it up." "It is a pity you ever gave it up," said the squire. "You might get a great deal of good from it." "There's two opinions about that," said Tom. "You see, squire, as long as mother was alive, I always went with her regular, 'cause it kind o' comforted her, though somehow or other I never took to it. So when she died I sort o' slacked off 'till now it's 'een amost two year since I been in." "They say," observed Mr. Jenkins, "they've took the old man up." "I'm sorry for that," cried Tom. "To go to take up a kind o' half-crazy man for speaking in meetin'!" "Why," inquired the squire, "would you allow the man to go about disturbing the neighbors as he pleased?" "I never heard tell of his disturbing nobody," said Tom. "Just take him off his notions about the ten vargins and their lamps, and the judgment day, and I don't know a likelier man than old Holden. In my opinion, he's a cleverer fellow than Davenport, by a long shot." "I don't believe he's been caught," said a man in a pee-jacket, who, from his appearance, was a fisherman. "I passed his island this morning about sunrise, with a boatload of oysters, and I see the old man at his door." "Well," observed Mr. Jenkins, "I hope he isn't. It's enough to make a body puke up his boots to hear Davenport, and I don't much blame Holden for cutting him short." "I heard somebody say," said Gladding, "that the old man shook his fist right in old Davenport's face, and told him up and down he was a good for nothing liar. I want to know if he can sue him, squire?"