years of age, and he lived in a style of life that showed he was in
pretty easy circumstances, if not possessed of immense wealth. Being,
moreover, extremely affable and liberal, he soon attracted the notice
of many noble citizens blessed with large families of daughters and
small incomes. The former of these were soon offered to him, from
among whom Roderigo chose a very beautiful girl of the name of Onesta,
a daughter of Amerigo Donati, who had also three sons, all grown up,
and three more daughters, also nearly marriageable. Though of a noble
family and enjoying a good reputation in Florence, his father-in-law
was extremely poor, and maintained as poor an establishment.
Roderigo, therefore, made very splendid nuptials, and omitted nothing
that might tend to confer honour upon such a festival, being liable,
under the law which he received on leaving his infernal abode, to feel
all kinds of vain and earthly passions. He therefore soon began to
enter into all the pomps and vanities of the world, and to aim at
reputation and consideration among mankind, which put him to no little
expense. But more than this, he had not long enjoyed the society of
his beloved Onesta, before he became tenderly attached to her, and was
unable to behold her suffer the slightest inquietude or vexation. Now,
along with her other gifts of beauty and nobility, the lady had
brought into the house of Roderigo such an insufferable portion of
pride, that in this respect Lucifer himself could not equal her; for
her husband, who had experienced the effects of both, was at no loss
to decide which was the most intolerable of the two. Yet it became
infinitely worse when she discovered the extent of Roderigo's
attachment to her, of which she availed herself to obtain an
ascendancy over him and rule him with a rod of iron. Not content with
this, when she found he would bear it, she continued to annoy him with
all kinds of insults and taunts, in such a way as to give him the most
indescribable pain and uneasiness. For what with the influence of her
father, her brothers, her friends, and relatives, the duty of the
matrimonial yoke, and the love he bore her, he suffered all for some
time with the patience of a saint. It would be useless to recount the
follies and extravagancies into which he ran in order to gratify her
taste for dress, and every article of the newest fashion, in which
our city, ever so variable in its nature, according to its usual
habits, so much abounds. Yet, to live upon easy terms with her, he was
obliged to do more than this; he had to assist his father-in-law in
portioning off his other daughters; and she next asked him to furnish
one of her brothers with goods to sail for the Levant, another with
silks for the West, while a third was to be set up in a goldbeater's
establishment at Florence. In such objects the greatest part of his
fortune was soon consumed. At length the Carnival season was at hand;
the festival of St. John was to be celebrated, and the whole city, as
usual, was in a ferment. Numbers of the noblest families were about to
vie with each other in the splendour of their parties, and the Lady
Onesta, being resolved not to be outshone by her acquaintance,
insisted that Roderigo should exceed them all in the richness of their
feasts. For the reasons above stated, he submitted to her will; nor,
indeed, would he have scrupled at doing much more, however difficult
it might have been, could he have flattered himself with a hope of
preserving the peace and comfort of his household, and of awaiting
quietly the consummation of his ruin. But this was not the case,
inasmuch as the arrogant temper of his wife had grown to such a height
of asperity by long indulgence, that he was at a loss in what way to
act. His domestics, male and female, would no longer remain in the
house, being unable to support for any length of time the intolerable
life they led. The inconvenience which he suffered in consequence of
having no one to whom he could intrust his affairs it is impossible to
express. Even his own familiar devils, whom he had brought along with
him, had already deserted him, choosing to return below rather than
longer submit to the tyranny of his wife. Left, then, to himself,
amidst this turbulent and unhappy life, and having dissipated all the
ready money he possessed, he was compelled to live upon the hopes of
the returns expected from his ventures in the East and the West. Being
still in good credit, in order to support his rank he resorted to
bills of exchange; nor was it long before, accounts running against
him, he found himself in the same situation as many other unhappy
speculators in that market. Just as his case became extremely
delicate, there arrived sudden tidings both from East and West that
one of his wife's brothers had dissipated the whole of Roderigo's
profits in play, and that while the other was returning with a rich
cargo uninsured, his ship had the misfortune to be wrecked, and he
himself was lost. No sooner did this affair transpire than his
creditors assembled, and supposing it must be all over with him,
though their bills had not yet become due, they resolved to keep a
strict watch over him in fear that he might abscond. Roderigo, on his
part, thinking that there was no other remedy, and feeling how deeply
he was bound by the Stygian law, determined at all hazards to make his
escape. So taking horse one morning early, as he luckily lived near
the Prato gate, in that direction he went off. His departure was soon
known; the creditors were all in a bustle; the magistrates were
applied to, and the officers of justice, along with a great part of
the populace, were dispatched in pursuit. Roderigo had hardly
proceeded a mile before he heard this hue and cry, and the pursuers
were soon so close at his heels that the only resource he had left was
to abandon the highroad and take to the open country, with the hope of
concealing himself in the fields. But finding himself unable to make
way over the hedges and ditches, he left his horse and took to his
heels, traversing fields of vines and canes, until he reached
Peretola, where he entered the house of Matteo del Bricca, a labourer
of Giovanna del Bene. Finding him at home, for he was busily providing
fodder for his cattle, our hero earnestly entreated him to save him
from the hands of his adversaries close behind, who would infallibly
starve him to death in a dungeon, engaging that if Matteo would give
him refuge, he would make him one of the richest men alive, and afford
him such proofs of it before he took his leave as would convince him
of the truth of what he said; and if he failed to do this, he was
quite content that Matteo himself should deliver him into the hands of
his enemies.
Now Matteo, although a rustic, was a man of courage, and concluding
that he could not lose anything by the speculation, he gave him his
hand and agreed to save him. He then thrust our hero under a heap of
rubbish, completely enveloping him in weeds; so that when his pursuers
arrived they found themselves quite at a loss, nor could they extract
from Matteo the least information as to his appearance. In this
dilemma there was nothing left for them but to proceed in the pursuit,
which they continued for two days, and then returned, jaded and
disappointed, to Florence. In the meanwhile, Matteo drew our hero from
his hiding-place, and begged him to fulfil his engagement. To this
his friend Roderigo replied: "I confess, brother, that I am under
great obligations to you, and I mean to return them. To leave no doubt
upon your mind, I will inform you who I am;" and he proceeded to
acquaint him with all the particulars of the affair: how he had come
into the world, and married, and run away. He next described to his
preserver the way in which he might become rich, which was briefly as
follows: As soon as Matteo should hear of some lady in the
neighbourhood being said to be possessed, he was to conclude that it
was Roderigo himself who had taken possession of her; and he gave him
his word, at the same time, that he would never leave her until Matteo
should come and conjure him to depart. In this way he might obtain
what sum he pleased from the lady's friends for the price of
exorcizing her; and having mutually agreed upon this plan, Roderigo
disappeared.
Not many days elapsed before it was reported in Florence that the
daughter of Messer Ambrogio Amedei, a lady married to Buonajuto
Tebalducci, was possessed by the devil. Her relations did not fail to
apply every means usual on such occasions to expel him, such as making
her wear upon her head St. Zanobi's cap, and the cloak of St. John of
Gualberto; but these had only the effect of making Roderigo laugh. And
to convince them that it was really a spirit that possessed her, and
that it was no flight of the imagination, he made the young lady talk
Latin, hold a philosophical dispute, and reveal the frailties of many
of her acquaintance. He particularly accused a certain friar of having
introduced a lady into his monastery in male attire, to the no small
scandal of all who heard it, and the astonishment of the brotherhood.
Messer Ambrogio found it impossible to silence him, and began to
despair of his daughter's cure. But the news reaching Matteo, he lost
no time in waiting upon Ambrogio, assuring him of his daughter's
recovery on condition of his paying him five hundred florins, with
which to purchase a farm at Peretola. To this Messer Ambrogio
consented; and Matteo immediately ordered a number of masses to be
said, after which he proceeded with some unmeaning ceremonies
calculated to give solemnity to his task. Then approaching the young
lady, he whispered in her ear: "Roderigo, it is Matteo that is come.
So do as we agreed upon, and get out." Roderigo replied: "It is all
well; but you have not asked enough to make you a rich man. So when I
depart I will take possession of the daughter of Charles, king of
Naples, and I will not leave her till you come. You may then demand
whatever you please for your reward; and mind that you never trouble
me again." And when he had said this, he went out of the lady, to the
no small delight and amazement of the whole city of Florence.
It was not long again before the accident that had happened to the
daughter of the king of Naples began to be buzzed about the country,
and all the monkish remedies having been found to fail, the king,
hearing of Matteo, sent for him from Florence. On arriving at Naples,
Matteo, after a few ceremonies, performed the cure. Before leaving the
princess, however, Roderigo said: "You see, Matteo, I have kept my
promise and made a rich man of you, and I owe you nothing now. So,
henceforward you will take care to keep out of my way, lest as I have
hitherto done you some good, just the contrary should happen to you in
future." Upon this Matteo thought it best to return to Florence, after
receiving fifty thousand ducats from his majesty, in order to enjoy
his riches in peace, and never once imagined that Roderigo would come
in his way again. But in this he was deceived; for he soon heard that
a daughter of Louis, king of France, was possessed by an evil spirit,
which disturbed our friend Matteo not a little, thinking of his
majesty's great authority and of what Roderigo had said. Hearing of
Matteo's great skill, and finding no other remedy, the king dispatched
a messenger for him, whom Matteo contrived to send back with a variety
of excuses. But this did not long avail him; the king applied to the
Florentine council, and our hero was compelled to attend. Arriving
with no very pleasant sensations at Paris, he was introduced into the
royal presence, when he assured his majesty that though it was true he
had acquired some fame in the course of his demoniac practice, he
could by no means always boast of success, and that some devils were
of such a desperate character as not to pay the least attention to
threats, enchantments, or even the exorcisms of religion itself. He
would, nevertheless, do his majesty's pleasure, entreating at the same
time to be held excused if it should happen to prove an obstinate
case. To this the king made answer, that be the case what it might, he
would certainly hang him if he did not succeed. It is impossible to
describe poor Matteo's terror and perplexity on hearing these words;
but at length mustering courage, he ordered the possessed princess to
be brought into his presence. Approaching as usual close to her ear,
he conjured Roderigo in the most humble terms, by all he had ever done
for him, not to abandon him in such a dilemma, but to show some sense
of gratitude for past services and to leave the princess. "Ah! thou
traitorous villain!" cried Roderigo, "hast thou, indeed, ventured to
meddle in this business? Dost thou boast thyself a rich man at my
expense? I will now convince the world and thee of the extent of my
power, both to give and to take away. I shall have the pleasure of
seeing thee hanged before thou leavest this place." Poor Matteo
finding there was no remedy, said nothing more, but, like a wise man,
set his head to work in order to discover some other means of
expelling the spirit; for which purpose he said to the king, "Sire, it
is as I feared: there are certain spirits of so malignant a character
that there is no keeping any terms with them, and this is one of them.
However, I will make a last attempt, and I trust that it will succeed
according to our wishes. If not, I am in your majesty's power, and I
hope you will take compassion on my innocence. In the first place, I
have to entreat that your majesty will order a large stage to be
erected in the centre of the great square, such as will admit the
nobility and clergy of the whole city. The stage ought to be adorned
with all kinds of silks and with cloth of gold, and with an altar
raised in the middle. Tomorrow morning I would have your majesty, with
your full train of lords and ecclesiastics in attendance, seated in
order and in magnificent array, as spectators of the scene at the said
place. There, after having celebrated solemn mass, the possessed
princess must appear; but I have in particular to entreat that on one
side of the square may be stationed a band of men with drums,
trumpets, horns, tambours, bagpipes, cymbals, and kettle-drums, and
all other kinds of instruments that make the most infernal noise. Now,
when I take my hat off, let the whole band strike up, and approach
with the most horrid uproar towards the stage. This, along with a few
other secret remedies which I shall apply, will surely compel the
spirit to depart."
These preparations were accordingly made by the royal command; and
when the day, being Sunday morning, arrived, the stage was seen
crowded with people of rank and the square with the people. Mass was
celebrated, and the possessed princess conducted between two bishops,
with a train of nobles, to the spot. Now, when Roderigo beheld so vast
a concourse of people, together with all this awful preparation, he
was almost struck dumb with astonishment, and said to himself, "I
wonder what that cowardly wretch is thinking of doing now? Does he
imagine I have never seen finer things than these in the regions
above--ay! and more horrid things below? However, I will soon make him
repent it, at all events." Matteo then approaching him, besought him
to come out; but Roderigo replied, "Oh, you think you have done a fine
thing now! What do you mean to do with all this trumpery? Can you
escape my power, think you, in this way, or elude the vengeance of the
king? Thou poltroon villain, I will have thee hanged for this!" And
as Matteo continued the more to entreat him, his adversary still
vilified him in the same strain. So Matteo, believing there was no
time to be lost, made the sign with his hat, when all the musicians
who had been stationed there for the purpose suddenly struck up a
hideous din, and ringing a thousand peals, approached the spot.
Roderigo pricked up his ears at the sound, quite at a loss what to
think, and rather in a perturbed tone of voice he asked Matteo what it
meant. To this the latter returned, apparently much alarmed: "Alas!
dear Roderigo, it is your wife; she is coming for you!" It is
impossible to give an idea of the anguish of Roderigo's mind and the
strange alteration which his feelings underwent at that name. The
moment the name of "wife" was pronounced, he had no longer presence of
mind to consider whether it were probable, or even possible, that it
could be her. Without replying a single word, he leaped out and fled
in the utmost terror, leaving the lady to herself, and preferring
rather to return to his infernal abode and render an account of his
adventures, than run the risk of any further sufferings and vexations
under the matrimonial yoke. And thus Belphagor again made his
appearance in the infernal domains, bearing ample testimony to the
evils introduced into a household by a wife; while Matteo, on his
part, who knew more of the matter than the devil, returned
triumphantly home, not a little proud of the victory he had achieved.
THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER[2]
BY WASHINGTON IRVING
[2] Courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers, New York &
London.
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 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.
About the year 1727, 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, 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.
One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the
neighbourhood, 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 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 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. 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 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 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 ax 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 neighbours. 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 ax. 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.
"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 neighbourhood I am known by the
name of the black woodsman. I am he to whom the red men consecrated
this spot, and in honour 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 Salem
witches."
"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.
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 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 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 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. "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
Israel."
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
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 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; 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 tea-pot 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.