Ah, but in the end the Devil doesn’t get any form of due from anyone else in Hell. So it really is Hell to pay.
This is a nautical expression that comes from the days of wooden ships and iron men.
The verb “to pay” means to apply pitch. The seams between the planks of a ship’s hull needed regular applications of pitch to slow down leakage.
The very worst seam to pay was the longest; it ran from stem to stern, right at the lowest point of the bilges, where all the filth accumulated. This seam, because it was so difficult and unpleasant to pay, was known as “the devil.”
Anybody surprised?
It was common to order a sailor to “pay the devil” as a punishment, perhaps for an offense not severe enough for a flogging. “You steal that grog, mate, and there’ll be the devil to pay if you get caught.”
That people use the term “Hell to pay” is just an indication that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was right all those years ago.