 | RIP VAN WINKLE. A book of the Hudson |  |
RIP VAN WINKLE.
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday.
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre—
Cartwright.
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember
the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of
the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west
of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over
the surrounding country. Every change of season, every
change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains,
and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as
perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled,
they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold
outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the
rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of
grey vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the
setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have
descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose
shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints
of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer
landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been
founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early times of
the province, just about the beginning of the government of the
good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were
some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a
few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland,
weathercocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses
(which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and
weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the
country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured
fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to
the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little
of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that
he was a simple, good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind
neighbor, and an obedient, hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to
the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit
which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are
most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are
under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers,
doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace
of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the
sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and
long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some
respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van
Winkle was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good
wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took
his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever
they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to
lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached.
He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them
to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of
ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging
about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging
on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand
tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him
throughout the neighborhood.
The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable
aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from
the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a
wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance,
and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not
be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece
on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through
woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few
squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a
neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at
all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone-fences;
the women of the village, too, used to employ him to
run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less
obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word Rip was
ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to
doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it
impossible.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it
was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole
country; everything about it went wrong, and would go
wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to
pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages;
weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere
else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as
he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial
estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by
acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian
corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the
neighborhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged
to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own
likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of
his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his
mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins,
which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine
lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals,
of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat
white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought
or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for
a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away
in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning
in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he
was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did
was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip
had but one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and
that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his
shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing.
This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife;
so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside
of the house—the only side which, in truth, belongs to a
hen-pecked husband.
Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as
much hen-pecked as his master; for dame Van Winkle regarded
them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon
Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so
often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an
honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured
the woods—but what courage can withstand the ever-during
and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment
Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the
ground or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a
gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van
Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he
would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years
of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age,
and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener
with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself,
when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual
club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the
designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the
Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy
summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling
endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been
worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions
that sometimes took place, when by chance an old
newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveller.
How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled
out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper learned
little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic
word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate
upon public events some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by
Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the
inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till
night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the
shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour
by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true he
was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly.
His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents),
perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions.
When anything that was read or related displeased him, he
was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth
short, frequent, and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would
inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and
placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth,
and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely
nod his head in token of perfect approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length
routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in
upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members
all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder
himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago,
who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in
habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his
wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods.
Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and
share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he
sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. “Poor Wolf,”
he would say, “thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it; but
never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend
to stand by thee!” Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in
his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity, I verily believe he
reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.
In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip
had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the
Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel
shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed
with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw
himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with
mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From
an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower
country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance
the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its
silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple
cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping
on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue
highlands.
On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen,
wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments
from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected
rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on
this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the mountains
began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he
saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village,
and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering
the terrors of Dame Van Winkle.
As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance,
hallooing, “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” He
solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy
must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
heard the same cry ring through the still evening air; “Rip
Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!”—at the same time Wolf
bristled up his back, and, giving a low growl, skulked to his
master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now
felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure
slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of
something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any
human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing
it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of his
assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity
of the stranger's appearance. He was a short square
built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard.
His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin
strapped round the waist—several pair of breeches, the outer
one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down
the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder
a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip
to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy
and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his
usual alacrity, and mutually relieving each other, they clambered
up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain
torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard
long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out
of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, towards
which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant,
but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient
thunder-showers which often take place in mountain heights,
he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a
hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular
precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their
branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky
his companion had labored on in silence, for though the former
marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg
of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something
strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, that inspired
awe and checked familiarity.
On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented
themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company
of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. They
were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short
doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and
most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with
that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar; one
had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face
of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted
by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red
cock's tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and
colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander.
He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance;
he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high
crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes,
with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the
figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie
Van Shaick, the village parson, and which had been brought
over from Holland at the time of the settlement.
What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though
these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained
the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were,
withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever
witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but
the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly
desisted from their play, and gazed at him with such fixed
statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre countenances,
that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote
into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the
company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed
the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their
game.
By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even
ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage,
which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands.
He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat
the draught. One taste provoked another, and he reiterated
his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses
were overpowed, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually
declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.
On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he
had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—
it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and
twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft,
and breasting the pure mountain breeze. “Surely,” thought
Rip, “I have not slept here all night.” He recalled the occurrences
before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg
of liquor—the mountain ravine—the wild retreat among the
rocks—the wo-begone party at ninepins—the flagon—“Oh!
that flagon! that wicked flagon!” thought Rip—“what excuse
shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?”
He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled
fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the
barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock
worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisterers of the
mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him
with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had
disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or
partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all
in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog
was to be seen.
He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's
gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his
joints, and wanting in his usual activity. “These mountain
beds do not agree with me,” thought Rip, “and if this frolic
should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a
blessed time with Dame Van Winkle.” With some difficulty
he got down into the glen: he found the gully up which he and
his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his
astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it,
leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling
murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides,
working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras,
and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the
wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to
tree, and spread a kind of net-work in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opened
through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such
opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable
wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of
feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the
shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was
brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his
dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle
crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a
sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to
look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What
was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip felt
famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his
dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do
to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered
the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and
anxiety, turned his steps homeward.
As he approached the village he met a number of people, but
none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he
had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country
round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that
to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with
him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence
of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same,
when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot
long!
He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of
strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing
at his grey beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he
recognised for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed.
The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous.
There were rows of houses which he had never seen before,
and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared.
Strange names were over the doors—strange faces at the
windows—everything was strange. His mind now misgave
him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around
him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village,
which he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill
mountains—there ran the silver Hudson at a distance—
there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been—
Rip was sorely perplexed—“That flagon last night,” thought
he, “has addled my poor head sadly!”
It was with some difficulty that he found his way to his own
house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every
moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He
found the house gone to decay—the roof fallen in, the windows
shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved
dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called
him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed
on. This was an unkind cut indeed—“My very dog,” sighed
poor Rip, “has forgotten me!”
He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van
Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn,
and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his
connubial fears—he called loudly for his wife and children—
the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and
then all again was silence.
He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the
village inn—but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden
building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some
of them broken and mended with old hats and petticoats, and
over the door was painted, “The Union Hotel, by Jonathan
Doolittle.” Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the
quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red
night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a
singular assemblage of stars and stripes—all this was strange
and incomprehensible. He recognised on the sign, however,
the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so
many a peaceful pipe; but even this was singularly metamorphosed.
The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff,
a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head
was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted
in large characters, General Washington.
There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but
none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people
seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone
about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity.
He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with
his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds
of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches, or Van Bummel,
the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper.
In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with
his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently
about rights of citizens—elections—members of congress—
liberty—Bunker's Hill—heroes of seventy-six—and other
words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered
Van Winkle.
The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his
rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women
and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the
tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from
head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to
he voted?” Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short
but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe,
inquired in his ear, “Whether he was Federal or Democrat?”
Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question,
when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp
cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to
right and left with his elbows as he passed, aud planting himself
before Van Winkle, with one arm a-kimbo, the other
resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as
it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone,
“what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder,
and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot
in the village?” “Alas! gentlemen,” cried Rip, somewhat
dismayed, “I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and
a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!”
Here a general shout burst from the bystanders—“A tory!
a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!” It
was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the
cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a tenfold
austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit,
what he came there for, and whom he was seeking? The
poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but
merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who
used to keep about the tavern.
“Well—who are they?—name them.”
Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, “Where's
Nicholas Vedder?”
There was a silence for a little while, when an old man
replied, in a thin piping voice, “Nicholas Vedder! why, he is
dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden
tombstone in the church-yard that used to tell all about him,
but that's rotten and gone too.”
“Where's Brom Dutcher?”
“Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war;
some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point—others
I don't know—he never came back again.”
“Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?”
“He went off to the wars too, was a great militia general,
and is now in congress.”
Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his
home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world.
Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous
lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand;
war—congress—Stony Point;—he had no courage to ask after
any more friends, but cried out in despair, “Does nobody here
know Rip Van Winkle?”
“Oh, Rip Van Winkle!” exclaimed two or three, “Oh, to
be sure! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the
tree.”
Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as
he went up the mountain: apparently as lazy, and certainly as
ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded.
He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or
another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in
the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his
name?
“God knows,” exclaimed he, at his wits' end; “I'm not
myself—I'm somebody else—that's me yonder—no that's
somebody else got into my shoes—I was myself last night, but
I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my gun,
and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell
what's my name, or who I am!”
The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink
significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads.
There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping
the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very suggestion of
which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with
some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh comely
woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the greybearded
man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which,
“hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you.” The
name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice,
all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. “What is
your name, my good woman?” asked he.
“Judith Gardenier.”
“And your father's name?”
“Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's
twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and
never has been heard of since—his dog came home without
him, but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the
Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl.”
Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a
faltering voice:
“Where's your mother?”
“Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a
blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New England pedler.”
There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence.
The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught
his daughter and her child in his arms. “I am your father!”
cried he—“Young Rip Van Winkle once—old Rip Van Winkle
now!—Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?”
All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from
among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under
it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, “Sure enough! it is
Rip Van Winkle—it is himself! Welcome home again,
old neighbor—Why, where have you been these twenty long
years?”
Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had
been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when
they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put
their tongues in their cheeks: and the self-important man in
the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned
to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook
his head—upon which there was a general shaking throughout
the assemblage.
It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter
Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road.
He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote
one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the
most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all
the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He
recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most
satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a
fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the
Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange
beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson,
the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil
there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-Moon;
being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise,
and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city
called by his name. That his father had once seen them in
their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the
mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon,
the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder.
To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned
to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's
daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished
house, and a stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom
Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon
his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself,
seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on
the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to
anything else but his business.
Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found
many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the
wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the
rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.
Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that
happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his
place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced
as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle
he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made
to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during
his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war—
that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England—and
that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third,
he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact,
was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but
little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism
under which he had long groaned, and that was—petticoat
government. Happily that was at an end; he had got his neck
out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever
he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van
Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he
shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes;
which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his
fate, or joy at his deliverance.
He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr.
Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some
points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his
having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely
to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in
the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some always pretended
to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been
out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always
remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost
universally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never
hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskills,
but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their
game of ninepins; and it is a common wish of all henpecked
husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their
hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van
Winkle's flagon.
NOTE.
The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr.
Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor
Frederick der Rothbart, and the Khypphaüser mountain; the subjoined
note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an
absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity.
“The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but
nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old
Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvellous events and
appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in
the villages along the Hudson, all of which were too well authenticated
to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself,
who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly
rational and consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious
person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a
certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and signed with
a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond
the possibility of doubt.
POSTSCRIPT.
The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-book of Mr.
Knickerbocker:
The Kaatsberg or Catskill Mountains have always been a region full
of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of spirits, who influenced
the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds over the landscape,
and sending good or bad hunting seasons. They were ruled by an old
squaw spirit, said to be their mother. She dwelt on the highest peak of
the Catskills, and had charge of the doors of day and night, to open and
shut them at the proper hour. She hung up the new moons in the
skies, and cut up the old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly
propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs
and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the mountain,
flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the air, until,
dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in gentle showers,
causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn to grow an
inch an hour. If displeased, however, she would brew up clouds black
as ink, sitting in the midst of them like a bottle-bellied spider in the
midst of its web, and when these clouds broke, woe betide the valleys.
In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of Maniton or
and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking all kinds of evils and
vexations upon the red men. Sometimes he would assume the form of
a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead the bewildered hunter a weary chase
through tangled forests and among ragged rocks, and then spring off with
a loud ho! ho! leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice
or raging torrent.
The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a great rock
or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, from the flowering
vines which clamber about it, and the wild flowers which abound in its
neighborhood, is known by the name of the Garden Rock. Near the foot
of it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water snakes
basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface.
This place was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that
the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its precincts.
Once upon a time, however, a hunter who had lost his way, penetrated
to the garden rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed in the
crotches of trees. One of these he seized and made off with it, but in
the hurry of his retreat, he let it fall among the rocks, when a great
stream gushed forth, which washed him away, and swept him down
precipices, where he was dashed to pieces, and the stream made its way
to the Hudson, and continues to flow to the present day, being the identical
stream known by the name of the Kaaters-kill.
| RIP VAN WINKLE. A book of the Hudson | |