The Devil and Tom Walker Q&A

Tom meets a black woodsman in the forest, who tells him to leave alone the skull of the violently killed soldier. The man claims the swamp land as his own and tells Tom that he will be using the timber of the recently hewn tree of Corwninshield for firewood. The woodsman tells him that the Indians consecrated that fort to him by sacrificing their enemies, which included the "white savages" like Tom. He finally confirms the identity of the woodsman by asking him if he goes by the title "Old Scratch." This term was often used to describe the devil in New England.

Tom appears to experience no fear at the sudden appearance of the devil, and the narrator comments that Tom had been married too long to a violent woman to fear the devil. However, the real reason why Tom fails to be afraid of the devil can be thought of as his spiritual blindness. Tom is unable to conceive of spirituality, and this becomes especially evident when Tom turns to religion later in his life. His shift towards piety is only external since he remains a deeply greedy man on the inside. He nearly agrees to the offer immediately but decides to confide in his wife before he does so. His wife's excitement at the prospect of treasure cements his resolve to not go through with the deal until she disappears.

The narrator offers various accounts of the end that met Tom's wife, and then selects one that he thinks is the most probable. He tells us that she could have gotten lost in the swamp on her own, or that she could have been lured into quicksand by the devil who was bothered by her presence. The historian favors the story that the devil took her off to hell after a violent struggle that seemed to involve some pulled clumps of hair from the devil's head.