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 found handfuls of hair,
that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse black shock of
the woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged
his shoulders as he looked at the signs of fierce clapper-clawing.
"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 woodsman, 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
the calling; 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
woodsman's dress, with his axe on his shoulder, sauntering along the
swamp and humming a tune. He affected to receive Tom's advances with
great 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.
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.
To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom's taste.
"You shall open a broker's shop in Boston 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 devil," 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 Boston.
His 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 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."
At this propitious time of public distress did Tom Walker set up as
usurer in Boston. 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,
everyone driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate
sacrifices hurried to Tom Walker.
Thus Tom was the universal friend to the needy, and acted like "a
friend in need"; that is to say, he always exacted good pay and
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, 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 fulness 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 of 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 travelling 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.
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. 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:
One hot summer afternoon in the dog-days, just as a terrible black
thunder-gust was 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
delay.
"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 the
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 bound. 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 had 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 the 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 whole forest in a blaze.
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 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 burned
to the ground.
Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all
gripping money-brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not
to be doubted. The very hole under the oak-trees, whence he dug Kidd's
money, is to be seen to this day; and the neighboring swamp and
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 England, of "The devil and Tom Walker."
DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT
_Nathaniel Hawthorne_ (1807-1864)
That very singular man, old Doctor Heidegger, once invited four
venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three
white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr.
Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the Widow
Wycherley. They were all melancholy old creatures, who had been
unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they
were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his
age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic
speculation, and was no little better than a mendicant. Colonel
Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in
the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of
pains, such as the gout and divers other torments of soul and body.
Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at
least had been so, till time had buried him from the knowledge of the
present generation, and made him obscure instead of infamous. As for
the Widow Wycherley, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in
her day; but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep seclusion,
on account of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the
gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning
that each of these three old gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel
Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, were early lovers of the Widow
Wycherley, and had once been on the point of cutting each other's
throats for her sake. And, before proceeding further, I will merely
hint that Doctor Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes
thought to be a little beside themselves; as is not unfrequently the
case with old people, when worried either by present troubles or woful
recollections.
"My dear friends," said Doctor Heidegger, motioning them to be seated,
"I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments
with which I amuse myself here in my study."
If all stories were true, Doctor Heidegger's study must have been a
very curious place. It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber, festooned
with cobwebs and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood
several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with
rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with
little parchment-covered duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a
bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities,
Doctor Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult
cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood
a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which
doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a
looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished
gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it
was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients
dwelt within its verge, and would stare him in the face whenever he
looked thitherward. The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented
with the full-length portrait of a young lady, arrayed in the faded
magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a visage as faded
as her dress. Above half a century ago Doctor Heidegger had been on
the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected
with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's
prescriptions, and died on the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity
of the study remains to be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume,
bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no
letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But
it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid
had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled
in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon
the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror;
while the brazen head of Hippocrates frowned, and said: "Forbear!"
Such was Doctor Heidegger's study. On the summer afternoon of our tale
a small round table, as black as ebony, stood in the centre of the
room, sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and workmanship.
The sunshine came through the window, between the heavy festoons of
two faded damask curtains, and fell directly across this vase; so that
a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five
old people who sat around. Four champagne glasses were also on the
table.
"My dear old friends," repeated Doctor Heidegger, "may I reckon on
your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?"
Now Doctor Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose
eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories.
Some of these fables, to my shame be it spoken, might possibly be
traced back to mine own veracious self; and if any passages of the
present tale should startle the reader's faith, I must be content to
bear the stigma of a fiction-monger.
When the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed
experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder
of a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the
microscope, or some similiar nonsense, with which he was constantly in
the habit of pestering his intimates. But without waiting for a reply,
Doctor Heidegger hobbled across the chamber, and returned with the
same ponderous folio, bound in black leather, which common report
affirmed to be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened
the volume, and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what
was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had
assumed one brownish hue, and the ancient flower seemed ready to
crumble to dust in the doctor's hands.
"This rose," said Doctor Heidegger, with a sigh, "this same withered
and crumbling flower, blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was
given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and I meant to
wear it in my bosom at our wedding. Five and fifty years it has been
treasured between the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you deem
it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?"
"Nonsense!" said the Widow Wycherley, with a peevish toss of her head.
"You might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever
bloom again."
"See!" answered Doctor Heidegger.
He uncovered the vase, and threw the faded rose into the water which
it contained. At first, it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid,
appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. Soon, however, a singular
change began to be visible. The crushed and dried petals stirred, and
assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower were reviving
from a death-like slumber; the slender stalk and twigs of foliage
became green; and there was the rose of half a century, looking as
fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It was
scarcely full blown; for some of its delicate red leaves curled
modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or three dewdrops
were sparkling.
"That is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's
friends; careless, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at
a conjurer's show; "pray how was it effected?"
"Did you ever hear of the 'Fountain of Youth,'" asked Doctor
Heidegger, "which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in
search of, two or three centuries ago?"
"But did Ponce de Leon ever find it?" said the Widow Wycherley.
"No," answered Doctor Heidegger, "for he never sought it in the right
place. The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is
situated in the southern part of the Floridian peninsula, not far from
Lake Macaco. Its source is overshadowed by several magnolias, which,
though numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets,
by the virtues of this wonderful water. An acquaintance of mine,
knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you see in the
vase."
"Ahem!" said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the
doctor's story; "and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human
frame?"
"You shall judge for yourself, my dear Colonel," replied Doctor
Heidegger; "and all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so
much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth.
For my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no
hurry to grow young again. With your permission, therefore, I will
merely watch the progress of the experiment."
While he spoke, Doctor Heidegger had been filling the four champagne
glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth. It was apparently
impregnated with an effervescent gas; for little bubbles were
continually ascending from the depths of the glasses, and bursting
in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor diffused a pleasant
perfume, the old people doubted now that it possessed cordial
and comfortable properties; and though utter sceptics as to its
rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at once. But
Doctor Heidegger besought them to stay a moment.
"Before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he, "it would be
well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should
draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second
time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would
be if, with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns
of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age!"
The doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer, except by a
feeble and tremulous laugh; so very ridiculous was the idea that,
knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error, they
should ever go astray again.
"Drink, then," said the doctor, bowing: "I rejoice that I have so well
selected the subjects of my experiment."
With palsied hands they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor,
if it really possessed such virtues as Doctor Heidegger imputed to it,
could not have been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more
wofully. They looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure
was, but had been the offspring of nature's dotage, and always the
gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures, who now sat stooping
round the doctor's table, without life enough in their souls or bodies
to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again. They drank
off the water, and replaced their glasses on the table.
Assuredly there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of
the party, not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of
generous wine, together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine,
brightening over all their visages at once. There was a healthful
suffusion on their cheeks, instead of the ashen hue that had made them
look so corpselike. They gazed at one another, and fancied that
some magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad
inscriptions which Father Time had been so long engraving on their
brows. The Widow Wycherley adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like
a woman again.
"Give us more of this wondrous water!" cried they, eagerly. "We are
younger--but we are still too old! Quick--give us more!"
"Patience! patience!" quoth Doctor Heidegger, who sat watching the
experiment with philosophic coolness. "You have been a long time
growing old. Surely you might be content to grow young in half an
hour! But the water is at your service."
Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of
which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people in the
city to the age of their own grandchildren. While the bubbles were yet
sparkling on the brim, the doctor's four guests snatched their glasses
from the table, and swallowed the contents at a single gulp. Was it
delusion? Even while the draught was passing down their throats it
seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. Their eyes
grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery
locks; they sat round the table, three gentlemen of middle age, and a
woman hardly beyond her buxom prime.
"My dear widow, you are charming!" cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes
had been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age were flitting
from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.