The rust on the
weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death blow had been
given. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that had taken
place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors.
"Humph!" said Tom Walker, as he gave the skull a kick to shake the dirt
from it.
"Let that skull alone!" said a gruff voice.
Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a great black man, seated directly
Opposite him on the stump of a tree. He was exceedingly surprised,
having neither seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more
perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit,
that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is true, he was
dressed in a rude, half Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed
round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper color, but
swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed
to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair,
that stood out from his head in all directions; and bore an axe on his
shoulder.
He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes.
"What are you doing in my grounds?" said the black man, 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
neighbor's. 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 axe. 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 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.
