stride 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 street, his white cap
bobbing up and down, his morning-gown fluttering in the wind, and his
steed striking fire out of the pavement. 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 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 toward
the old Indian fort, and that shortly after a thunderbolt fell in that
direction which 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 found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and
silver, his iron chest was filled with worthless 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.

Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all griping
money-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 are often haunted on 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 saying prevalent throughout New England of "The Devil and Tom
Walker."

SHELLEY ON CHILDREN.

They were earth's purest children, young and fair,
With eyes the shrines of unawaken'd thought,
And brows as bright as spring or morning.

VICT