ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The
dogs, too, not one of which he recognized 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 the 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 recognized 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 scepter, 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 him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired “on
which side 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 the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting
himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, 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 churchyard 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 say he was drowned in
a squall at the foot of Anthony Nose. 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 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 gray-bearded man.
She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began
to cry. “Hush, Rip,” cried she, “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’s 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 peddler.”
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 of the head 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 of the old times “before the war.” It was some
time before 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 awakened. 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
thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say
Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of ninepins; and it is a
common wish of all hen-pecked 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.
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
By Washington Irving
In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern
shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated
by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always
prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas
when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port, which
by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly
known by the name of Tarrytown. This name was given, we are told, in
former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the
inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the tavern on
market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely
advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from
this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or
rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places
in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur
enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or
tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in
upon the uniform tranquillity.
[Illustration: A TROOP OF STRANGE CHILDREN RAN AT HIS HEELS—page 377
_From the painting by Arthur Rackham_]
I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting
was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I
had wandered into it at noon time, when all nature is peculiarly quiet,
and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath
stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes.
If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world
and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled
life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.
From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of
its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers,
this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW,
and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all
the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over
the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place
was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the
settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of
his tribe, held his pow-wows there before the country was discovered by
Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under
the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of
the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are
given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and
visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in
the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots,
and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across
the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with
her whole nine-fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and
seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the
apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some
to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away
by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war;
and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in
the gloom of night as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not
confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and
especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed,
certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been
careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this
specter, allege that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the
churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest
of his head; and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes
along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated,
and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has
furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and
the specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the
Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not
confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously
imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake
they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure,
in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin
to grow imaginative—to dream dreams, and see apparitions.
I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such
little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great
State of New York, that population, manners, and customs, remain fixed;
while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making
such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by
them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which
border a rapid stream; where we may see the straw and bubble riding
quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed
by the rush of the passing current.
Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy
Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees
and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American
history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the
name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,”
in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the
vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut; a State which supplies the
Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends
forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters.
The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall,
but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands
that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for
shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was
small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and
a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock, perched upon
his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding
along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging
and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius
of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a
cornfield.
His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed
of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of
old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a
withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the
window shutters; so that, though a thief might get in with perfect
ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out; an idea most
probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery
of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant
situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close
by, and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the
low murmur of his pupils’ voices, conning over their lessons, might be
heard in a drowsy summer’s day, like the hum of a bee-hive; interrupted
now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of
menace or command; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch,
as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge.
Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the
golden maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”—Ichabod Crane’s
scholars certainly were not spoiled.
I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel
potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their subjects; on
the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than
severity; taking the burthen off the backs of the weak, and laying it on
those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least
flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of
justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little,
tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled
and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing
his duty by their parents”; and he never inflicted a chastisement without
following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin,
that “he would remember it, and thank him for it the longest day he had
to live.”
When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate
of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of
the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good
housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed,
it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue
arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely
sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and
though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his
maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded
and lodged at the houses of the farmers, whose children he instructed.
With these he lived successively a week at a time; thus going the rounds
of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton
handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic
patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous
burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers
occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms; helped to make hay;
mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from pasture;
and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant
dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire,
the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found
favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the children, particularly
the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the
lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle
with his foot for whole hours together.