Tales of a Traveller

the curious history of my native province, yet for a long time my inquiries were unattended with any substantial result.
    At length it happened, one calm day in the latter part of summer, that I was relaxing myself from the toils of severe study by a day’s amusement in fishing in those waters which had been the favorite resort of my boyhood. I was in company with several worthy burghers of my native city. Our sport was indifferent; the fish did not bite freely; and we had frequently changed our fishing ground without bettering our luck. We at length anchored close under a ledge of rocky coast, on the eastern side of the island of Manhata. It was a still, warm day. The stream whirled and dimpled by us without a wave or even a ripple, and every thing was so calm and quiet that it was almost startling when the kingfisher would pitch himself from the branch of some dry tree, and after suspending himself for a moment in the air to take his aim, would souse into the smooth water after his prey. While we were lolling in our boat, half drowsy with the warm stillness of the day and the dullness of our sport, one of our party, a worthy alderman, was overtaken by a slumber, and, as he dozed, suffered the sinker of his drop-line to lie upon the bottom of the river. On waking, he found he had caught something of importance, from the weight; on drawing it to the surface, we were much surprised to find a long pistol of very curious and outlandish fashion, which, from its rusted condition, and its stock being worm-eaten and covered with barnacles, appeared to have been a long time under water. The unexpected appearance of this document of warfare occasioned much speculation among my pacific companions. One supposed it to have fallen there during the revolutionary war. Another, from the peculiarity of its fashion, attributed it to the voyagers in the earliest days of the settlement; perchance to the renowned Adrian Block, who explored the Sound and discovered Block Island, since so noted for its cheese. But a third, after regarding it for some time, pronounced it to be of veritable Spanish workmanship.
    “I’ll warrant,” said he, “if this pistol could talk it would tell strange stories of hard fights among the Spanish Dons. I’ve not a doubt but it’s a relique of the buccaneers of old times.”
    “Like enough,” said another of the party. “There was Bradish the pirate, who at the time Lord Bellamont made such a stir after the buccaneers, buried money and jewels somewhere in these parts or on Long-Island; and then there was Captain Kidd—”
    “Ah, that Kidd was a daring dog,” said an iron-faced Cape Cod whaler.
“There’s a fine old song about him, all to the tune of:
    ‘My name is Robert Kidd,
As I sailed, as I sailed.’
    And it tells how he gained the devil’s good graces by burying the
Bible:
    ‘I had the Bible in my hand,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
And I buried it in the sand,
As I sailed.’
    Egad, if this pistol had belonged to him I should set some store by it out of sheer curiosity. Ah, well, there’s an odd story I have heard about one Tom Walker, who, they say, dug up some of Kidd’s buried money; and as the fish don’t seem to bite at present, I’ll tell it to you to pass away time.”

THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER.
    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.
    About the year 1727,