2. Washington Irving
• 1783-1859
• First American author widely admired in
Europe
• Also wrote “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow”
• Set stories in the New York area
• Traveled the world and was a US diplomat
3. A few miles from Boston, in
Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet
winding several miles into the interior of
the country from Charles Bay, 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 amount of 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
look out 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 Boston, sent out to England, and
there hanged for a pirate.
1. What important facts are
presented in the first paragraph
of the story?
4. About the year 1727, just at the time when
earthquakes were prevalent in New England, 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-laid egg. 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 savin trees,
emblems 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 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 a 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
clamour and clapper clawing; eyed the den of
discord askance, and hurried on his way, rejoicing, if
a bachelor, in his celibacy.
2.
3.
What important information is given in the
second paragraph?
How does this description make you feel? Why?
5. One day that Tom Walker had
been to a distant part of the
neighbourhood, he took what he
considered a short cut
homewards 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
neighbourhood. It was full of pits
and quagmires, partly covered
with weeds and mosses; where
the green surface often betrayed
the traveller into a gulf of black
smothering mud; there were also
dark and stagnant pools, the
abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake, and
where trunks of pines and
hemlocks lay half drowned, half
rotting, looking like alligators,
sleeping in the mire.
4. How does this description
compare to the description of the
house? Why?
6. 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 piece
of firm ground, which ran out like a
peninsula into the deep bosom of the
swamp. It had been one of the strong holds
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 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.
7. It was late in the dusk of evening
that Tom Walker reached the old
fort, and he paused there for a while
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.
5. What do you think is
going to happen next?
Why?
8. 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. As he turned up the soil
unconsciously, 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 the
skull a kick to shake the dirt from it.
"Let that skull alone!" said a gruff voice.
6. Who do you think the “gruff
voice is? Why?
9. 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 seen nor heard any one 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 colour,
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 in my grounds?" said the
black man, with a hoarse growling voice.
7.
Who do you think the
“black man” is? Why?
10. "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 his neighbour's.
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. He now looked round
and found most of the tall trees marked with
the name of some great men 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 Crowninshield; and he recollected a mighty
rich man of that name, who made a vulgar
display of wealth, which it was whispered he
had acquired by buccaneering.
8. What do the trees represent?
Why do you think this?
9. What does the representation
tell you as a reader?
11. "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 prior claim," said the other. "This
woodland belonged to me long before one of
your white faced 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 neighbourhood I am known by the
name of the Black Woodsman. I am he to whom
the red men devoted this spot, and 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."
10. What do you think the “prior claim”
is? Why?
11. Who do you think the “black man” is
now? Why?
12. "The upshot of all which is, that, if I
mistake not," said Tom, sturdily, "you are
he 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.
12. Based on the picture, how would you
describe a “termagant wife”? Why?
13. Why would Tom “not even fear the
devil?”
13. It is said that after this commencement,
they had a long and earnest conversation
together, as Tom returned homewards.
The black man told him of great sums of
money which had been 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 favour. 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 easily be 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 where money
was in view. When they had reached the
edge of the swamp the stranger paused.
"What proof have I that all you have been
telling me is true?" said Tom.
14. What do you think the terms
offered to Tom were? Why?
15. Based on what we’ve read so
far, what did Tom make a deal for?
Why do you think that?
14. "There is 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 Israel."
15. Tom recollected the tree which his black
What does the tree have to do
friend had just hewn down, and which was 16.
with Absalom Crowinshield? Why do
ready for burning. "Let the freebooter
roast," said Tom, "who cares!" He now felt you think this?
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.
16. Being of the same fearless temper as her
husband, she set off for the old Indian fort
towards 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
forebore 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: midnight came, but she did not
make her appearance; morning, noon,
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.
17. What do you think happened to
Tom’s wife? Why?
17. What was her real fate nobody knows, in
consequence of so many pretending to
know. It is one of those facts that have
become confounded by a variety of
historians. Some asserted that she lost
her way among the tangled mazes of the
swamp and sunk 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 assert that the
tempter had decoyed her into a dismal
quagmire on 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.
18. 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 sat 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 no
where to be heard. The bittern alone
responded to his voice, as he flew screaming
by; or the bull frog croaked dolefully from a
neighbouring 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 clamour of
carrion crows that were hovering about a
cypress tree. He looked and beheld a bundle
tied in a check apron and 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.
19. "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
check apron, but, woeful sight! found nothing but
a heart and liver tied up in it.
Such, according to the 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 is
said Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet
deeply stamped about the tree, and several
handsful of hair, that looked as if they had been
18. Which of the stories about
plucked from the coarse black shock of the
Tom’s wife do you believe?
woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by
Why?
experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he
looked at the signs of a fierce clapper clawing.
"Egad," said he to himself, "Old Scratch must
have had a tough time of it!"
20. 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 towards
the black woodsman, who he
considered had done him a kindness.
He sought, therefore, to cultivate a
farther 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 any thing
rather than not gain the promised
treasure, he met the black man one
evening in his usual woodman dress,
with his axe on his shoulder,
sauntering along the edge of the
swamp, and humming a tune. He
affected to receive Tom's advance with
great indifference, made brief replies,
and went on humming his tune.
19. What cards is the “black man”
playing? Why do you think this?
20. What does it mean when the “black
man” is walking with the axe? Why do
you think this?
21. What do you think is going to happen
to Tom? Why?
21. 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 dealer.
Finding Tom so squeamish on this
point, 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.
22. A usurer is someone who lends
money. Why would the devil be satisfied
that Tom became one of those instead of a
slave dealer?
22. To this no objections were made, for it was
23. What clues are there on this page that
just to Tom's taste.
Tom is a greedy person? Why do you think
"You shall open a broker's shop in Boston
this?
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 merchant to
bankruptcy-"
"I'll drive him to the d--l," cried Tom Walker,
eagerly.
"You are the usurer for my money!" said the
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.
23. A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind
his desk in a counting house in Boston. His
reputation for a ready moneyed man, who would
lend money out for a good consideration, soon
spread abroad. Every body remembers the days 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
every body 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 every body was dreaming of
making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual
the fever had subsided; the dream had gone off,
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."
24. How does this paragraph
relate to what is happening in
the world today? Why do you
think this?
24. At this propitious time of public distress did
Tom Walker set up as a usurer in Boston.
His door was soon thronged by customers.
The needy and the 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 he 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.
25. What can be said about Tom
Walker as an individual? What
evidence do you have to support
this?
25. In this way he made money hand over hand; became a rich
and mighty man, and exalted his cocked hat upon change. 26. What is the change in the
He built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; character of Tom that occurs?
but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished
out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fullness Why do you think it happens?
of his vain glory, 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 religious, as in money matters; he was a
stern 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.
26. 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 on 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. This, however, is probably a mere old
wives fable. If he really did take such a
precaution it was totally superfluous; at least so
says the authentic old legend which closes his
story in the following manner.
27. Why do you think Tom is
afraid?
27. On one hot afternoon in the dog days,
28. Is Tom telling the truth to the land
just as a terrible black thundergust was jobber? Why or why not?
coming up, Tom sat in his counting
house in his white linen cap and India
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 had
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!"
28. 29. Explain the deal Tom made with
Just then there were three loud knocks at
the street door. He stepped out to see who the Devil back in the swamp? Was it a
was there. A black man was holding a black good deal? Why or why not?
horse which neighed and stamped with
impatience.
"Tom, you're come for!" said the black
fellow, gruffly. Tom shrunk 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 astride the horse
and away he galloped in the midst of a
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 bound.
When the clerks turned to look for the
black man he had disappeared.
29. Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the
mortgage. A countryman who lived on the
borders of the swamp, reported that in the
height of the thunder gust he had heard a
great clattering of hoofs and a howling
along the road, and that when he ran to the
window he just caught sight of a figure, such
as I have described, on a horse that galloped
like mad across the fields, over the hills and
down into the black hemlock swamp
towards the old Indian fort; and that shortly
after a thunderbolt fell in that direction
which seemed to set the whole forest in a
blaze.
30. What do you think really
happened to Tom Walker? Why?
30. The good people of Boston 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.
31. Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill
31. What do think the moral of this story
gotten wealth. Let all griping money
is? Why?
brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of
it is not to be doubted. The very hole
under the oak trees, from whence he dug
Kidd's money is to be seen to this day; and
the neighboring swamp and old Indian fort
is often haunted in stormy nights by a
figure on horseback, in a 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,
prevalent throughout New-England, of
"The Devil and Tom Walker."
THE END
