Tom seized the checked apron, but, woful sight! found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it!
He leaped with joy, for he recognized his wife's apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables.
Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property, with the loss of his wife, for he was a man of fortitude
to comply with the black man's terms, and
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 consecrated this spot, and in honor of whom they 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."
was late in the dusk of evening when Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there awhile to rest himself. Any one but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, melancholy place, for the common people had a bad opinion of it, from the stories handed down from the times of the Indian wars, when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here and made sacrifices to the Evil Spirit.
orest, stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes and roots,
He had a wife as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other.
He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence; but as this was an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her.
