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.
"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 Tom was a hard-minded
fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant
wife, that he did not even fear the devil.
It is said that after this commencement they had a long and earnest
Conversation together, as Tom returned homewards. The black man told
him of great sums of money which had been buried by Kidd the pirate,
under the oak trees on the high ridge not far from the morass. All
these were under his command and protected by his power, so that none
could find them but such as propitiated his favor. These he offered to
place within Tom Walker's reach, having conceived an especial kindness
for him: but they were to be had only on certain conditions. What these
conditions were, may easily be surmised, though Tom never disclosed
them publicly. They must have been very hard, for he required time to
think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles where money was
in view. When they had reached the edge of the swamp the stranger
paused.
"What proof have I that all you have been telling me is true?" said
Tom.
"There is my signature," said the black man, pressing his finger on
Tom's forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets of the
swamp, and seemed, as Tom said, to go down, down, down, into the earth,
until nothing but his head and shoulders could be seen, and so on until
he totally disappeared.
When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it
were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate.
The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom
Crowninshield, the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers with
the usual flourish, that "a great man had fallen in Israel."
Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just hewn down, and
which was ready for burning. "Let the freebooter roast," said Tom, "who
cares!" He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no
illusion.
He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence; but as this was
an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was
awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to
comply with the black man's terms and secure what would make them
wealthy for life.
