Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-12-25
Galts AND Sketfbes.
TIE DEVIL AND TON WALKsR.
By WASHINGTON IRVING.

A few miles from Boston in Massachu.
sets there is deep inlet, winding several
miles into the interior of the country from
Charles Bay, and terminating in thickly
wooded swamp or morass.
On one side of this inlet is beautiful
| dark grove; on the opposite side the land
| rises abruptly from the waters edge into
| high ridge, on which grow few scatter.
| ed oaks of great age an immense size
Under one of these gigantic trees. &C
| cording to old stories, there was a great
amount of treasure buried by Kidd the
| pirate.
The inlet allowed facility to bring the
| money In boat secretly and at night to
| the very foot of the hill; the elevation OF
| the place permitted good lookout to be
kept that no one was at hand; while the
| remark able trees formed good landmarks
| by which the place might easily be found
| again.
The old stories add, moreover, that the
| devil presided at the hiding of the money.
and took it under his guardianship; but
this, it is well known. he always does with
buried treasure, particularly when 1t has
been ill-ootten. BE that AS it may, Kidd
never returned to recover his wealth; be-
ipg shortly after seized at Boston, sent out
to England, and there hanged fer pirate.
About the year 1927, just at the time
that earthquakes were prevalent in New
England, and shook many tall sinners
down upon their knees, there lived near
this place a meagre, mlserly fellow. of
the name of Tom Walker. He had wife
as misery as himself; they were so
misery that they even conspired to cheat
.tL Wbofavar tho cnnll
lay hands on, she hid away; hen could
not cackle but she was on the alert to Sc
cure the new-laid egg. Her husband was
continually prying about to detect her
secret boards. and many and fierce were
the conflicts that took place about what
ought to have been common property.
They lived in forlorn- looking house
that stood alone, and had an air of starva-
ton. A few struggling savin-trees, en-
blems of sterility, grew near it; no smoke
ever curled from its chimney no traveller
stopped at its door. A miserable horse,
whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of
gridiron, stalked about field. where q
thin carpet of moss, scarcely covering the
the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantan-
LIKED and baked his hunger; and some
times he would lean his head over the
fence, look piteously at the passer-by, and
seem to petition deliverance from this land
of famine.
The house and its inmates had altogether
bad name. Toms wife was tall
termagant, fierce OF temper, loud of
tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice
was often heard in wordy warfare with
her hcsband and his face sometimes
showed signs that their conflicts were not
confined to words. No one ventured how
ever. to interfere between them. The
lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself at
the horrid clamor and clapper clawing
eyed the den of discord askance and hur-
ried on his way, rejoicing, if bachelor,
in his celibacy.
One day that Tom Walker had been to
| distant part of the neighbOrhood, he took
| what he considered short cut homeward,
| through the swamp. Like most shor,
| cuts, it was an ill-chosen route The
swamp was thickly grown with great
| gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them
ninety feet high. which made it dark al
monday and a retreat for all the owls OF
the neighborhood. 1t was full of pits and
| quagmires, partly covered with weeds and
MOSES, where the green surface often be.
trayed the traveller into gulf of black
smothering mud; there were also dark
and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tad
pole, the bull-frog. and the water-snake
where the trunks of pines and hemlocks
lay half-drowned. half-rotting. looking
like alligators sleeping in the mire.
Tom had long been picking his way
cautiously through the treacherous forest
stepping from tutt to tuft of rushes and
roots. which afforded precarious footholds
among deep sloughs; pacing carefully
like a cat, along the PROSTATE trunks o.
trees; startled now and then by the
screaming of the bittern, or the quackine
of wild duck rising on the wing from
some solitary pool. At length he arrived
at firm piece OF ground, which ran ou
like peninsula into the deep bosom o
the swamp.
1t had been one of the strongholds O
the Indians during their wars with the
first colonists. Here they had thrown ur
kind of a fort. which they had looked
upon as almost impregnable, and had uset
as place of refuge for their squaws ant
children. Nothing remained of the ole
Indian fort but few entertainments. grad
ually sinking to the level of the surround
ing earth. aud already overgrown in par
by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage
of which formed a contrast to the dart
pines and hemlocks of the swamp
II was late in the dusk of the 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 lnger in this lonely. melancholy place
for the common people had opinion o.
it. from the stories handed down from shs
time of the Indian wars when it vas as
serted that the ssvages held lamentations
here, and made sacrifices to the evil spirit
Tom Walker. however. was not mar
to be troubled with any fears of the kind
He reposed himself tor some time on thu
trunk of fallen hemlock, listening to ths
boiling cry of the tree-toad, and delvins
with his walking staff into mound at hi!
feet.
Uncousciously turning up the soil. hi.
staff struck against something hard HI
raked out of the Vegetable mould. and 10
a clovep skull, with an Indian tomahawi
buried deep in it. lay before him. The
rust on the weapon showed the time tina
had elapsed since this death-blow had beer
given, 1t was drearv memento of the
fierce struggle that had taken place in thi.
last foeshold of the Indian warriors.
| ssHumphrn said Tom Walker "a hs