San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1889-03-28
Tho Devil and Tom Walker.
By WASHINGTON IRVING.

setts, there is deep inlet, winding sew
eral miles into tho interior of the coun
try from Charles bay and terminating
in u thickly wooded swamp, or morass
On one side Of this inlet is beautiful
dark grove, on the opposite side the lane
rises abruptly from the waters edge into
high ridge on which grow few scat
tered oaks of great age and immens,
size. 1t was under one Of these gigantic
trees, according to old stories, that Kidd
the pirate. buried his treasure. The in
let allowed q facility to bring the money
in n boat secretly and at night to tho
very foot Of tho hill. The elevation OF
the place permitted good lookout to be
kept that no one was Mt hand, while the
remarkable 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 guar,
dianship; but this, it is well known, he
always does with buried treasure, par.
ticularly when it has been i'll gotten.
Be that as 1t may, Kidd never returned
to recover his wealth, being shortly after
seized at Boston, sent out to England,
and there hanged for pirate.
About the year 1877, just at the time
when earthquakes were prevalent in
New England, and shook many tall sin.
ners down upon their knees, there lived
near this place meager, misery fellow
of the name of Tom Walker. He had a
wife as miscrly as himself; they wero SO
misery that they even conspired to cheat
each other. Whatever the woman could
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 Eeen common prop
erty. They lived In forlorn looking
house, that stood alone and had an air of
starvation. A few etraggling savin
trees, emblems Of sterility, grew near it;
no smoke ever curled from its chimney
no traveller stopped at its door. A miser-
able horse, whose ribs were as articulate
as the bars of gridiron, stalked about a
field where thin carpet Of moss,
scarcely covering the ragged beds of
pudding stone, tantalized and baked his
hunger; and sometimes he would lean
his head over the fence, look piteously
at the passer by, and seem to petition de-
liverance from this land of famine. The
house and its inmates had altogether q
bad name. Toms wife was tall ter
mogant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue
and strong Of arm. Her voice was often
heard in wordy warfare with her hus-
band; and his face sometimes showed
signs that their conflicts were not con-
fined to words. No one ventured, how
ever, to interfere between them; the
lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself
at the holTid clamor and clapper claw
ing; eyed the den Of discord askance and
hurried on his way rejoicing, if a bach
clor, in his celibacy.
Ono day that Tom Walker had been to
Il distant part of the neighborhood, he
took what he considered short cut
homewards through tho swamp. Like
most short cuts, it was an i'll chosen
route. The swamp was thickly grown
with great gloomy pines and henlocks,
some Of them ninety feet high, which
made it dark at noon day, and retreat
for all the owls of the ncighborhood 1t
was full Of pits and quagmires, partly
the green surface often betrayed the
traveller into gulf of black smothering
mud; there were also dark and stagnant
pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bull
frog, and the water snake, and where
trunks OF pines and hemlocks lay half
drowned, half rotting, looking like alli-
gators, sleeping in the mire.
Tom had long been picking his way
through this treacherous for
est; stepping from tuft 10 tuft of rushes
and roots which afforded precarious foot
holds among deep sloughs; or pacing
like a cat, among the PROSTATE
trunks Of trees; startled now and then by
the sudden screaming of the bittern, or
the quGcking of wild duck, rising on
the wing from some solitary pool. At
length ho arrived at q piece Of firm
ground, which ran out like q peninsula
into the deep bosom Of the swamp. 1t
had been one of the strongholds Of the
Indians during their wars with the first
coIonists. Here they had thrown up
kind Of fort which they had looked upon
rs almost impregnable, and had used as
a place of refuge for their squaws and
children. Nothing remained of the In
dian fort but a few embankments grad
ually sinking to the level Of the sur
rounding earth, and already overgrown
In part by oaks and other forest trees.
the foliage Of which formed contrast
TO the dark pines and hemlocks Of the
swamp.
Il was late in the duck Of evening that
Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he
paused there for awhile to rest himself.
Any one but he would have felt unwill-
Ing to linger in this lonely, melancholy
place, for the common people had had
opinion of It from the stories handed
down from the time Of the Indian wars;
when II was asserted that the savagcs
held incantations here and made sacri-
fees to the evil spirit. Tom Walker,
however, was not a man TO be troubled
With any fears Of the kind.
lie reposed himself for some time on
he trunk Of a fallen hemlock, listening
% the boding CITY Of the tree toad, and
lelving with his walking staff into n
mound Of black mold at his feet. As he
urncd UP the soil unconsciously. his
taft struck against something hard. He
.aked Il out Of tho vegetable mold, and
o. n cloven skull with an Indian t0ma-
iawk buried deep in it, lay before him.
The rust On the weapon showed the time
hat had clap3ed since this death blow
lad teen given. l. wEs a dreary nc
ncnto Of the fcrce trouble that had
aiken place In this last fOothold Of the
ndian WARRIOR
"Humphr said Ten Walker, as be
ave the skull kick % shake tic dirt
RON H.
LA thai sui alonc!- sid a gr1G
'Cire.
Ton lifted up his eyes and behed .
rezt blzck nan. seatcd Cirectlyopposi
I'm On the stump q tree lie uas eE-
eedingly suTrrised, having neither seen
.oT heard any oDe approach, and he va
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