Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/62

suggest many odd fancies, and once upon a time there was something of the kind at the place which I have mentioned.

There was at the foot of this particular tree, on the side next to the road, what appeared to be a portion of the root from which the soil had in part fallen away, yet which was not exposed because of a thick covering of luxuriant green moss. In the ridges and hollows thus formed, it required no effort to trace the likeness of two semi-recumbent human forms, not perfectly outlined, indeed, but so distinct in parts as to convey but the one idea. It may be that, in the good old days of fifty, sixty and seventy years ago, pleasure parties sought the grateful shade of the forest in the hot summer months and talked about this curious freak of nature. Children, too, may have romped and shouted there, and plucked the bright red pigeon berries, which seemed to be larger and richer there than at any other place. The years went by; one after another of those who sought their pleasure there passed away. Again and again the property changed hands and the old walls of the mansion no longer gave echo to the gay revelry of former days. The tree with the curious figures at its base became forgotten.

In the autumn of 1853, a party of surveyors, running lines in this part of the county, stopped one day in the woods by this tree to rest themselves. Sitting there, smoking and chatting, the attention of one of them was drawn to the singular shape of the ground, and to the peculiar mossy growth. The vivid green, in contrast with the sombre brown in other places, excited his curiosity, and suggested the occurrence of some peculiar mineral deposit. With the small axe he carried, he began tearing away some of the moss, when he was surprised to find a bone which beyond doubt was that of a human thigh. Speedily, but with great