The Devil and Tom Walker

== THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER ==
=== By Washington Irving ===
A few miles from Boston Massachussett in there is a deep inlet, winding
several miles into the interior of the country from  , and terminating in a
thickly wooded swamp or  morass. 
On one side of this inlet is a beautiful
dark grove ; on the  opposite side the
land rises abruptly from the water's edge 
into a high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of  great age and immense size. 
Under one of these gigantic trees,
according to old stories,  there was a
great treasure buried by Kidd the pirate. 
The inlet allowed a facility to bring the
money in a boat  secretly and at night to
the very foot of the hill; the elevation of the place permitted a good lookout
to be kept that no  one was at 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 guardianship
;  but this, it is well known, he always
does with buried  treasure, particularly
when it has been ill-gotten. Be that as 
it may, Kidd never returned to recover his wealth; being  shortly after seized at , sent out to , and
there  hanged for a pirate. 
About the year 1727, just at the time that
earthquakes  were prevalent in , and shook many tall sinners  down upon their knees, there lived near this
place a meagre, miserly fellow, of the name of Tom Walker. He had a wife  as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that
they even  conspired to cheat each other.
Whatever the woman could  lay hands on,
she hid away; a hen could not cackle but she 
was on the alert to secure the new-deal.. Her husband was continually
prying about to detect her secret hoards, and 
many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what  ought to have been common property.  They lived in a forlorn-looking house that
stood alone, and had an air of starvation. A few straggling saving-trees,
emblems of sterility, grew near it; no smoke ever curled from  its chimney; no traveler stopped at its door.
A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a
gridiron,  stalked about a field, where a
thin carpet of moss, scarcely  covering
the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantalized and  balked his hunger; and sometimes 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 a
bad name.  Tom's wife was ^ tall termagant,
fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice was often heard
in  wordy warfare with her husband; and
his face sometimes  showed signs that
their conflicts were not confined to words. 
No one ventured, however, to interfere between them. The  lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself at the
horrid clamor  and clapper-clawing; eyed
the den of discord askance; and  hurried
on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his celibacy. 
One day that Tom Walker had been to a
distant part of the neighborhood, he took what he considered a short cut  homeward, through the swamp. Like most short
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 at noonday, and a
retreat for all  the owls of the
neighborhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and
mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of  black, smothering mud ; there were also dark
and stagnant  pools, the abodes of the
tadpole, 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  this treacherous
forest; stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes 
and roots, which afforded precarious footholds among deep  sloughs; or pacing carefully, like a cat,
along the prostrate  trunks of trees ;
startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the bittern, or the quacking
of a wild duck rising on  the wing from
some solitary pool. At length he arrived at a firm piece of ground, which ran
out like a peninsula into the  deep
'bosom of the swamp. 
It had been one of the strongholds of the
Indians during  their wars with the first
colonists. Here they had thrown up  a
kind of fort, which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, and had used as
a place of refuge for their squaws and 
children. Nothing remained of the old Indian fort but a few embankments,
gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and already overgrown
in part by oaks and other  forest trees,
the foliage of which formed a contrast to the 
dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp. 
It 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  time of the Indian wars, when it was asserted
that the savages held incantations here, and made sacrifices to the evil  spirit. 
Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be
troubled with  any fears of the kind. He
reposed himself for some time on  the
trunk of a fallen hemlock, listening to the boding cry of  the tree-toad, and delving with his
walking-staff into a mound  of black
mould at his feet. 
Unconsciously turning up the soil, his
staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mould, and
lo! a cloven skull, with an Indian tomahawk buried deep  in it lay before him. The rust on the weapon
showed the time that had elapsed since this death-blow had been given.  It was a dreary memento of the fierce
struggle that had taken  place in this
last foothold of the Indian warriors. 
"Humph!" said Tom Walker, as he
gave it a kick to shake the dirt from it. 
“ Let that skull alone! " said a gruff
voice. 
Tom lifted up his eyes, and beheld a great
black man seated directly opposite him, on the stump of a tree. He  was exceedingly surprised, having neither
heard nor seen  anyone approach ; and he
was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would
permit, that the  stranger was neither
negro nor Indian. It is true he was dressed in a rude half Indian garb, and had
a red belt or sash  swathed round his
body ; but his face was neither black nor 
copper-colored, 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 on 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 those of his
neighbors. 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, an eminent man, who had waxed  wealthy by driving shrewd bargains with the
Indians. 
He now looked around, and found most of the
tall trees marked with the name of some great man 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 Crownin shield ; and he recollected a mighty  rich man of that name, who had 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 a prior claim,"
said the other. "This woodland belonged to me long before one of your
whitefaced 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 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 witches." 
“ The upshot of all which is, that, if I
mistake not," said  Tom, sturdily,
“you are 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 homeward.
The black man told him of great sums of money 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 be easily
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 when money was in view. 
When they 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's 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 ." 
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.  However Tom might have felt disposed to sell
himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife ; so he
flatly refused, out of the mere spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were
the quarrels they had on the subject; but the more she talked, the more
resolute was Tom not to be damned to please her. 
At length she determined to drive the bargain
on her own account, and if she succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself.  Being of the same fearless temper as her
husband, she set off for the old Indian fort toward the close of a summer’s day.
She was many hours absent. When she came back, she was reserved and sullen in
her replies. She spoke something of a black man, whom she had met about
twilight  hewing at the root of a tall
tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms ; she was to go again
with a  propitiatory offering, but what it
was she forbore to say. 
The next evening she set off again for the
swamp, with her apron heavily laden. Tom waited and waited for her,  but in vain; came, but she did not make her appearance;
morning, , night
returned, but still she did  not come.
Tom now grew uneasy for her safety, especially 
as he found she had carried off in her apron the silver teapot and
spoons, and every portable article of value. Another night elapsed, another
morning came; but no wife. In a  word she
was never heard of more. 
What was her real fate nobody knows, in
consequence of so many pretending to know. It is one of those facts which have
become confounded by a variety of historians. Some asserted that she lost her
way among the tangled mazes of  the
swamp, and sank into some pit or slough ; others, more  uncharitable, hinted that she had eloped with
the household  booty, and made off to
some other province ; while others 
surmised that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire, on the
top of which her hat was found lying. In confirmation of this, it was said a
great black man, with an  axe on his
shoulder, was seen late that very evening coming  out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a
check apron,  with an air of surly
triumph. 
The most current and probable story,
however, observes  that Tom Walker grew
so anxious about the fate of his wife 
and his property that he set out at length to seek them both  at the Indian fort. During a long summer's
afternoon he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen.  He called her name repeatedly, but she was
nowhere to be heard. The bittern alone responded to his voice, as it flew screaming
by; or the bull-frog croaked dolefully from a 
neighboring pool. 
At length, it is said, just in the brown hour
of twilight, when the owls began to hoot, and the bats to flit about, his  attention was attracted by the clamor of
carrion crows  hovering about a
cypress-tree. He looked up, and beheld a 
bundle tied in a check apron, hanging in the branches of the  tree, with a great vulture perched hard by,
as if keeping  watch upon it. He leaped
with joy, for he recognized his  wife's
apron, and supposed it to contain the household 
valuables. 
“Let us get hold of the property,'* said
he, consolingly to  himself, “and we will
endeavor to do without the woman." 
As he scrambled up the tree, the vulture
spread its wide wings, and sailed off screaming into the deep shadows of
the  forest. Tom seized the checked
apron, but, woeful sight ! found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it. 
Such, according to this most authentic old
story, was all that was to be found of Tom's wife. She had probably attempted
to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband
; but, though a female scold  is generally
considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had
the worst of it. She must have died game, however, for it it said Tom noticed
many  prints of cloven feet deeply
stamped about the tree, and  found
handfuls of hair, that looked as if they had been  plucked from the coarse black shock of the
woodman.  Tom knew his wife's prowess by
experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the signs of a fierce
clapperclawing. “ Egad," said he to himself, “ Old Scratch must  have had a tough time of it! " 
Tom consoled himself for the loss of his
property, with  the loss of his wife, for
he was a man of fortitude. He even felt something like gratitude toward the
black woodman, who, he considered, had done him a kindness. He sought,  therefore, to cultivate a further
acquaintance with him, but  for some time
without success; the old black-legs played shy, 
for whatever people may think, he is not always to be had  for calling for: he knows how to play his
cards when pretty  sure of his game. 
At length, it is said, when delay had
whetted Tom's eagerness to the quick, and prepared him to agree to
anything  rather than not gain the
promised treasure, he met the black  man
one evening in his usual woodman's dress, with his axe  on his shoulder, sauntering along the swamp,
and humming a  tune. He affected to
receive Tom's advances with indifference, made brief replies and went on
humming his tune. 
By degrees, however, Tom brought him to
business, and they began to haggle about the terms on which the former was to
have the pirate's treasure. There was one condition  which need not be mentioned, being generally
understood  in all cases where the devil
grants favors; but there were  others
about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate. He insisted
that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He
proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic; that is to
say, that he should fit out a slave-ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused
: he was bad enough in all conscience ; but the devil himself could not tempt
him to turn  slave-trader, he did not
insist  upon it, but proposed, instead,
that he should turn usurer;  the devil
being extremely anxious for the increase of usurers,  looking upon them as his peculiar people. 
To this no objections were made, for it was
just to Tom's taste. 
"You shall open a broker's shop in next month," said
the black man. 
“ I'll do it to-morrow, if you wish,"
said Tom Walker. 
“You shall lend money at two per cent a
month." 
"Egad, I'll charge four!" replied
Tom Walker, 
"You shall extort bonds, foreclose
mortgages, drive the  merchants to
bankruptcy " 
"I'll drive them to the d 1,"
cried Tom Walker. 
" You are the usurer for my money!
" said black-legs with  delight."
When will you want the rhino?" 
"This very night." 
" Done!" said the devil. 
"Done!" said Tom Walker. So they
shook hands and struck a bargain. 
A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated
behind his desk in a counting house in .
Tom's reputation for a ready moneyed man,
who would lend money out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad.  Everybody remembers the time of Governor
Belcher, when  money was particularly
scarce. It was a time of paper credit. The country had been deluged with
government  bills, the famous Land Bank
had been established ; there had  been a
rage for speculating ; the people had run mad with  schemes for new settlements ; for building
cities in the wilderness ; land jobbers went about with maps of grants, and
townships, and Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which  everybody was ready to purchase. In a word,
the great speculating fever which breaks out every now and then in  the country, had raged to an alarming degree,
and everybody  was dreaming of making
sudden fortunes from nothing. As  usual
the fever had subsided ; the dream had gone ofif, and  the imaginary fortunes with it ; the patients
were left in doleful plight, and the whole country resounded with the
consequent cry of "hard times." 
At this propitious time of public distress
did Tom Walker set up as usurer in .
His door was soon thronged by customers. The needy and adventurous; the
gambling speculator; the dreaming land jobber; the thriftless tradesman;  the merchant with cracked credit ; in short,
every one driven  to raise money by
desperate means and desperate sacrifices, 
hurried to Tom Walker. 
Thus Tom was the universal friend of the
needy, and acted like a "friend in need" ; that is to say, he always
exacted good  pay and good security. In
proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his terms. He
accumulated bonds and mortgages ; gradually squeezed his customers closer  and closer; and sent them at length, dry as a
sponge, from  his door. 
In this way he made money hand over hand, he
became a  rich and mighty man, and
exalted his cocked hat upon  'Change. He
built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater
part of it unfinished and unfurnished, out of parsimony. He even set up a
carriage in the fullness of his vainglory, though he nearly starved the horses
which drew it ; and as the ungreased wheels groaned  and screeched on the axle-trees, you would
have thought you  heard the souls of the
poor debtors he was squeezing. 
As Tom waxed old, however, he grew
thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious
about those of the next. He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with
his black friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions.
He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent church-goer. He prayed loudly
and strenuously, as if heaven were to be taken 
by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell when he had sinned most
during the week, by the clamor of his Sunday devotion. The quiet Christians who
had been modestly and steadfastly traveling Zionward, were struck with
self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly outstripped in their career by this
new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in religion as in money matters; he was a
stem supervisor and censurer of his neighbors, and seemed to think every sin
entered up to their account became a credit 
on his own side of the page. He even talked of the expediency of
reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. 
In a word, Tom's zeal became as notorious
as his riches. 
Still, in spite of all this strenuous
attention to forms, Tom  had a lurking
dread that the devil, after all, would- have his  due. That he might not be taken unawares,
therefore, it is  said he always carried
a small Bible in his coat pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his
counting-house desk, and  would
frequently be found reading it when people called on  business; on such occasions he would lay his
green spectacles in the book, to mark the place, while he turned round to  drive some usurious bargain. 
Some say that Tom grew a little
crack-brained in his old  days, and that,
fancying his end approaching, he had his horse 
new-shod, saddled and bridled, and buried with his feet uppermost ;
because he supposed that at the last day the world  would be turned upside down: in which case he
should find  his horse standing ready for
mounting, and he was determined at the worst to give his old friend a run for
it. 
One hot summer afternoon in the dog-days,
just as a terrible black thurider-gust was coming up, Tom sat in his
counting-house, in his white linen cap and silk morning gown. He was on
the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of an
unlucky land-speculator for whom he professed the greatest friendship. The poor
land-jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy
and irritated, and refused another day. " My family will be ruined, and
brought upon  the parish,'* said the land-jobber.
“Charity begins at home," replied Tom;
“I must take  care of myself in these
hard times." 
"You have made so much money out of
me," said the speculator. 
Tom lost his patience and his piety."
The devil take me,"  said he, “ if I
have made a farthing! " 
Just then there were three loud knocks at
the street door.  He stepped out to see
who was there. A black man was holding  a
black horse which neighed and stamped with impatience. 
“Tom, you're come for," said the black
fellow, gruffly. 
Tom shrank back, but too late. He had left
his little Bible at the bottom of his coat-pocket, and his big Bible on the
desk buried under the mortgage he was about to foreclose :  never was sinner taken more unawares. 
The black man whisked him like a child into
the saddle, gave the horse a lash, and away he galloped with Tom on his back,
in the midst of the thunder-storm. The clerks stuck their pens behind their
ears, and stared after him from the windows. Away went Tom Walker, dashing down
the streets ; his white cap bobbing up and down ; his morning-gown fluttering
in the wind, and his steed striking fire out of the pavement at every pound. 
When the clerks turned to look for the
black man, he had disappeared. 
Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the
mortgage.  A countryman, who lived on the
border of the swamp, reported that in the height of the thunder-gust he heard a
great  'clattering of hoofs and a howling
along the road, and running  to the
window caught sight of a figure, such as I have described, on a horse that
galloped like mad across the fields, 
over hills and down into the black hemlock swamp toward  the old Indian fort; and that shortly after,
a thunder-bolt  falling in that direction
seemed to set the forest in a blaze. 
The good people of shook their heads and shrugged their
shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins, and tricks
of the devil, in all kinds of shapes, 
from the first settlement of the colony, that they were not so  much horror-struck as might have been expected.
Trustees were appointed to take charge of Tom's effects. There was nothing,
however to administer upon. On searching his coffers, all his bonds and
mortgages were found reduced to  cinders.
In place of gold and silver, his iron chest was filled with chips and shavings
; two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half-starved horses, and the
very next day his  great house took fire
and was burnt to the ground. 
Such was the end of Tom Walker and his
ill-gotten wealth.  Let all griping
money-brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted.
The very h(3le under the oak  trees,
whence he dug Kidd's money, is to be seen to this day;  and the neighboring swamp and the old Indian
fort are often  haunted in stormy nights
by a figure on horseback, in morning-gown and white cap, which is doubtless the
troubled spirit  of the usurer. In fact,
the story has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of that popular
saying, so prevalent  throughout New , of
'*The Devil and Tom Walker."it might have been;” it yet may be. 
There is time enough only keep track of the
minutes ; they will accomplish wonders if wisely ordered ; that is the  secret of final success — watching the
minutes. Have you a  new,, quick-winding ? 
It is the ideal low-priced watch ; with all
the genuineness, beauty and accuracy of the high-cost ones. Every woman might
and ought to have it. So should every man and boy. it is a treasure in itself
and often saves a costlier one. 
Category:Irving