The Devil and Tom Walker.
BY WASHINGTON IRVING.
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783, and died at Sunnyside, near Tarrytown, New York, November 28, 1859. Irving is frequently spoken of as the founder of American literature. Though fond of reading, he had little taste for study in his youth, and did not attend college.
Failing health caused him to go to Europe, where he traveled for several years. His first literary work of importance was his "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Shortly afterward, while engaged in a commercial venture with his brothers, he found it necessary to make a second visit to England. The firm failed, and, while still in England, Irving again devoted all his attention to literature.
The "Sketch Book" was the first of the young author's works to win favor on the other side. This was followed by "Bracebridge Hall" and "Tales of a Traveler." Irving then went to Spain, and in the course of the several years that he spent there he wrote "A Life of Columbus," the "Conquest of Granada," and "The Alhambra." Subsequently he wrote his two most celebrated biographical works—"The Life of Washington" and "The Life of Goldsmith."
Irving was noted principally for his quaint humor and graceful literary expression. The following story, "The Devil and Tom Walker," is taken from "The Tales of a Traveler."
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.
It was under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, that Kidd the pirate buried his treasure. 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 Boston, sent out to England, and there hanged for a pirate.