d. It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died;
which was but an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived.
With him dwelt Fenda, his hospitable wife, who told fortunes, yet
pleasantly--large, round, and black, blacker than any of the children of
night, such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.

Farther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the woods, are
marks of some homestead of the Stratton family; whose orchard once
covered all the slope of Brister's Hill, but was long since killed out
by pitch pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old roots furnish still
the wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree.

Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, on the other side of
the way, just on the edge of the wood; ground famous for the pranks of
a demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has acted a prominent
and astounding part in our New England life, and deserves, as much as
any mythological character, to have his biography written one day; who
first comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and
murders the whole family--New-England Rum. But history must not yet
tell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to
assuage and lend an azure tint to them. Here the most indistinct and
dubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same,
which tempered the traveller's beverage and refreshed his steed. Here
then men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went
their ways again.

Breed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long
been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by
mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on
the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant's
"Gondibert," that winter that I labored with a lethargy--which, by the
way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having
an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout
potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the
Sabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers'
collection of English poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my
Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in
hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of
men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook.
We thought it was far south over the woods--we who had