, with a hoarse
growling voice.

"Your grounds?" said Tom, with a sneer; "no more your grounds than mine:
they belong to Deacon Peabody."

"Deacon Peabody be d----d," said the stranger, "as I flatter myself he
will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to his
neighbors'. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring."

Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of
the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core, and
saw that it had been nearly hewn through, so that the first high wind was
likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name of
Deacon Peabody.

He now looked round and found most of the tall trees marked with the names
of some great men of the colony, and all more or less scored by the ax.
The one on which he had been seated, and which had evidently just been
hewn down, bore the name of Crowninshield; and he recollected a mighty
rich man of that name, who had made a vulgar display of wealth, which it
was whispered he had acquired by buccaneering.

"He's just ready for burning!" said the black man, with a growl of
triumph. "You see I am likely to have a good stock of firewood for
winter."

"But what right have you," said Tom, "to cut down Deacon Peabody's
timber?"

"The right of prior claim," said the other. "This woodland belonged to me
long before one of your white-faced race put foot upon the soil."

"And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold?" said Tom.

"Oh, I go by various names. I am the Wild Huntsman in some countries; the
Black Miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of the
Black Woodsman. I am he to whom the red men devoted this spot, and now and
then roasted a white man by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red
men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by
presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the great
patron and prompter of slave dealers, and the grand master of the Salem
witches."

"The upshot of all which is, that, if I mistake not," said Tom sturdily,
"you are he commonly called 'Old Scratch.'"

"The same at your service!" replied the black man, with a half civil nod.

Such was the opening of this interview, according to the old story, though
it has almost too familiar an air to be credited. One would think that to
meet with such a singular personage in this wild, lonely place would have
shaken any man's nerves; but To