important source--is a little lake in Essex County, with an Indian name
which translates into "Tear of the Clouds?" I didn't, and I'm not
certain people ought to probe rivers' pasts any more than they ought
women's. It's their own fault if they find out insignificant beginnings.
Fancy saying, "Who _was_ she?" about a beautiful body of water like the
Hudson! Jack is naturally glad that Henry Hudson was English, not Dutch,
as so many people think from his being spelt Hendrik as a rule. I
suppose the Dutch hoped that would be thought, from their tacking on the
"k," for they were so jealous of each other, the Hollanders and the
Puritans, in the days of the early un-settlers.
[Illustration: SUNNYSIDE "Washington Irving's dear old Dutch house is
like a beautiful living body with his memory for its soul"]
Frightfully geologic things seem to have happened and subsided under the
Hudson, making it navigable all the way; otherwise New York City
wouldn't be the greatest on the American continent. Jack was talking to
me about this all along Riverside Drive, not that it would have mattered
much, because New Yorkers could have said it was the greatest to
Chicago people just the same. I didn't dare make this remark to Jack,
however, because he was being thrilled with thoughts of the Revolution
and I wanted to encourage him in those. I hoped he wouldn't know about
Fort Washington being the place of the fight that caused General
Washington to give up Manhattan Island to his--Jack's--horrid ancestors;
but he did know, and about the sloops and brigs and other things which
we foxy little Americans had sunk there to keep the British ships from
getting farther up the river. You can get tremendously excited about
this Revolution business when you're on the spot, you see, though you
and I have lived so much in England where most people treat it as a
"brush" less important than the Boer War. And when you are here,
surrounded with all the noisy progress and skyscraping greatness of our
country, it is wonderful to think how a few brave men, determined to
have their rights, in spite of desperate odds, made this vast difference
in the world.
I was secretly longing to know what Jack would think of the dear
Palisades, which seem so wonderful to us, and give us more of a feeling,
somehow, than the highest mountains of Europe, Africa, or Asia. But he
was most satisfactory about them. He didn't say much. He just gazed,
which was better; and they were looking their grandest that day, like
the walls of castles turned into mountains. And there were strange
lights and shadows in the water which gave a magical, enchanted effect.
There were thunderous violet clouds in the sky, with shafts of sunshine
pouring through; and Jack and I discovered, deep down in the river,
marvellous treasures of the enchanted castles: white marble seats and
statues, and golden vases, and drowned peacocks, with spread purple
tails floating under the crystal roof which _we_ call the surface of the
river.
It does annoy me when Europeans patronize us about being a new country,
doesn't it you? The Palisades, it seems, boiled up and took shape as a
wall of cliff thirty million years ago, or maybe more, in the Triassic
period. What can you get anywhere older than that? And Europe would give
a cathedral or two out of her jewel-box to look young as long as America
does!
We've got a queer old manuscript at Awepesha, which Jack has ferreted
out of obscurity, telling the Indian legends of the Hudson River. They
are as beautiful as anything from the ancient Sanscrit, and the Indians
who lived on the Palisades' green tops, or along the shores beneath--the
Hackensack, and Tappan Indians and others who have given their names to
river places--had some of the best legends of all. I love the Woman of
the Mountains (young and lovely, not old, as some people say) who had
done noble service for the Great Spirit: as reward she had the privilege
of cutting out a new silver moon every month with her magic shears, and
when it was shrinking into uselessness, to snip what was left into
little stars--as Juliet wanted done with Romeo! She lived in a wonderful
purple cave, not in the Palisades, but hidden in the Catskills; and from
its door, which no one could find, she sent forth Day and Night
alternately. Also, in immense jars of porphyry and gold, she kept
sunshine and storm, to let out when she thought best. Perhaps those
purple splashes and golden gleams we saw under the water were her storm
and sun jars, which floated out of the cave and buried themselves in the
sand poured down by Sandy Hook!
To jump from the Indian legends to the Dutch, I do trust the story of
Spuyten Duyvil is true. It must be, because it's too good _not_ to be
true. Do you remember it's told in dear Washington Irving's
"Knickerbocker History of New York?"--the most amusing history book ever
written, I should think. The man--one of Peter Stuyvesant's men, I
fancy--was hurrying to warn the farmers that the Beastly British were
coming, and when there was no bridge by which he could cross the stream
he vowed he'd do the trick "in spuyt den duyvil." The history says he
was drowned in the fierce waters, but I _can't_ believe that part. I
think his jealous rival--of course he had one--put _that_ tale about. Of
course he got across and warned the farmers, as he deserved to do for
defying the devil.
I remember when I used to be at boarding-school in New York, and in
spring we were taken little Saturday trips when we were good, the very
name of "Yonkers" meant deadly suburban dullness to me. I only wanted to
get past the place. But to motor through with Jack makes all the
difference, even though by the time we reached there I was bristling
with rage at sight of the doings of Caspian in the Grayles-Grice. We
were trailing in the rear, so the troublous events and turbid emotions
of the cars ahead were visible to us, as if they had been uncovered
saucepans boiling over on a redhot stove. Fancy that Caspian creature
practically ordering Storm out to buy newspapers, as if he were a
chauffeur! But Jack consoled me: "Before you explode, stop and think
what would have been the effect on you if Jimmy Payne had done that with
poor old Brown."
Of course, I should have ached to box Jimmy's ears, and all my loyalty
would have flowed out in waves to Brown; so perhaps Pat--but to go back
to Yonkers. It makes the name sound less unsympathetic and like a frog's
croak to recall that it was given when the Yonk Heer Vredryck Flypse, or
Philipse (he who called New York "a barren island"), the richest and
most important man of his day, from New York to Tarrytown, built one of
his manor houses there. It's still there, by the way, and lots of other
historic things, if one bothers to stop and dig them up, instead of
dashing through with an admiring glance at the jolly modern houses, more
conspicuous than the old.
We had a full day before us, what with worshipping at Washington
Irving's shrine, and sighing over Sing Sing, and arriving at West Point
in time for dress parade and to hear the sunset gun. So we flew fast
through lovely Hastings-on-Hudson, and Irvington, over a silk-smooth
surface, under an adorable avenue of trees which perhaps remembered the
Revolution; past exquisite places where only exquisite people ought to
live, to Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. It seems sacrilege to arrive in
autos and a hurry at a town with a name so deliciously lazy, to say
nothing of its associations. But one can't help being modern!
I wonder if the comfortable Dutch settlers who pottered along this old
Albany Post Road ever dreamed nightmare dreams of creatures like us,
tearing in strange machines over surfaces magnificently bricked or
oiled, and covering in one day distances to which they would prayerfully
have devoted weeks? Probably they would have pitied and despised rather
than envied us; and maybe they'd have been right: for does the extra
ozone and the thrill of speed quite make up for things missed or half
seen? Still, _impressions_ are wonderful; and I shan't forget the
bluebell colour of distant hills, the silver-gray of rocks, and the
diamond-dazzle of water glimpsed between feathery tree branches, or the
jewelled gleam of wild flowers scattered by the roadside, and the pale
flame of mulleins straight and tall as lighted candles in the grass.
Isn't it a sweet thing for the world that there should have been men who
loved making the rock-bound fields of history blossom with delicate
flowers, just as monks of ancient days illumined quite dull texts?--men
like Washington Irving, for instance.
I always loved Washington Irving, and so I'm glad to say did Jack; but
he came back to life and actually walked with us that day. Perhaps it
sounds impudent and conceited to say this, but I don't mean it so, and
if he knew how humble and happy we felt as we came under his spell, I do
think he wouldn't have snubbed us. No, he would never have snubbed any
one! He was much too human, and _understanding_. He wouldn't scornfully
have called us "tourists," but would have realized that we were
worshippers at a shrine. Of course I _don't_ include Ed Caspian or Mrs.
Shuster! C., when the time came to leave our cars outside the
with-difficulty-found gates of Sunnyside, put on the airs of a _grand
seigneur_ who knows all that is to be known already. He said (so Peter
told us later): "It's not much of a place; quite a small house, not
worth getting out for." And he actually proposed that Patty should sit
in the car with him while the others explored! Pat wasn't "taking any."
She jumped out, and rather than see her walk away with Peter, C. had to
follow. As for Mrs. Shuster, she can't bear to walk if there's a chance
of sitting still, especially since she's taken to these fearfully
tall-heeled, new-fashioned, high-necked boots which make our feet look
like the hoofs of rather _chic_ cows: incredible heels like the Venetian
beauties used to wear. She, like Caspian, reminded her beloved of the
blessing for those who only stand (sit!) and wait. But Larry said he'd
something important to tell Pat; then strolled with Idonia Goodrich and
never went near his daughter. Mrs. Shuster was reduced to her peace
partner; and, oh, you _can't_ think what she looks like when she pouts!
We had to thank Larry for an open sesame to the doors of Sunnyside,
however; for he has some distant acquaintance with the grand-nephew of
Washington Irving who has inherited the quaint, delightful house with
its red gables and extraordinarily intelligent-looking windows. Anybody
is allowed to peep inside the gates of the old place, but of course the
house is only for friends or acquaintances, or it would be overrun and
the family would have to take to the cellar. Pat had somehow forced
Larry to write and ask permission, for he never puts pen to paper if he
can help it!
Sometimes it's a blow to see where your favourite authors lived, but
Washington Irving's dear old Dutch house is _just right_. It is like a
beautiful living body with his memory for its soul: yes, a charming body
with all his quaintnesses and unexpectednesses and dainty mysteries.
It looks at least as old as the seventeenth century, but only a nucleus
of the rambling, many-windowed, creeper-clad mansion is really old.
There's a romance about that part, by the way, but perhaps you know it
better than I do.
[Illustration: "The old Dutch Church at Tarrytown"]
Once upon a time, when Washington Irving was very young, he visited the
Pauldings in a house swept away now. He used to take a boat and row all
alone, to think thoughts and dream dreams under the willow trees that
even then roofed the brook in Sunnyside glen. He could see a tiny house
called "Wolfert's Roost," and said to himself, "If I could live here and
have that for mine I should be perfectly happy."
It didn't seem then as if his wish could possibly come true, but he
always kept it in his heart, and years later, after he had lived in
London and been American Minister in Madrid, he came back to his first
love, with money he had been saving up, to make it his own. He added and
added again to the house, but contrived to give it the lovely look of
having just grown up anyhow, as trees and flowers grow. That's partly
because of its cloaks and muffs and boas of trumpet-creeper and ivy. It
has the look, too, even now, of being miles from anywhere--except the
river and the creek, which sing the same song they sang long ago, under
the trees. The trees of Sunnyside are somehow curiously individual, Jack
and I thought, as if they knew the historic reputation they had to live
up to, and were gently proud of it. There are trees graceful as ladies
dancing a minuet, spreading out their green brocade skirts for a deep
curtsey; trees as spicily perfumed as the pouncet boxes of those same
ladies; thoughtful trees whose one mission in life is to give deep shade
under showering branches, and gay trees like sieves for sunshine. Jack
and I wandered among them and then gazed out upon them, as Washington
Irving must often have gazed (in search of new inspiration), through the
small square panes of his study windows.
His descendants have changed nothing there, in that dear little modest
nest for a genius! It's close to the front door, as you go in from the
deep porch, at the right-hand side of a fascinating corridor. Looking
down that corridor you see a vista of rooms, delightful as rooms in
dreams. They are furnished, but not crowded, with old and exquisite
things--things which must have been intimate friends of the family for
generations; and, oh, how much more attractive are the rooms than any
royal suites I've seen in palaces!
In the study (I feel sure _he_ called it that, not library) the master
of long ago might have walked a moment ago, out into the garden, so
entirely does the room seem impressed with his personality. There are
his books, his manuscripts, his pens; his desk, and his writing-chair
drawn up to it; his little table; the charming old prints he loved,
given to him and signed by friends whose names are famous; pictures of
the house when it was "Wolfert's Roost," and when it had grown larger.
The green and golden light streaming through the windows, front and
side, seems just the sort of light that Washington Irving would have
loved to write in. He made it greener and more inspiring by bringing
from Melrose Abbey slips of the ivy which now curtains the windows; and
in the green-gold light he wrote his "Life of Washington" and many
other things which we all love.
Coming out of the study when we were ready to go away, I looked through
the open door of a beautiful room across the corridor, straight into an
old-fashioned mirror. Never was a mirror so becoming. I felt as if I
were seeing my own portrait painted by Romney; and behind me for an
instant I seemed to catch a fleeting glimpse of another face, as though
a man stood on the study threshold, smiling to me a kind good-bye. I
adore my own imagination. After Jack, it is my best and dearest chum!
I think even if one didn't know that thrilling things had happened in
Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow (heavenly names!) in old days, one would
somehow _feel_ it. What's the use of one's subconscious self if it
doesn't nudge one's subjective self and whisper that _it_ was born
knowing? Why, I could see Sir Vredryck Flypse and his family streaming
out of the old Dutch church, as gorgeous in their Sunday best as the
church was simple; the ladies' stomachers embroidered with silver and
seed pearls, their short, stiff brocade skirts swinging to show their
silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, much as ours do now; the men
taking a sly pinch of snuff, and brushing it hastily off their blue or
gray coats; tie-wigs, silver buttons, and knee breeches glittering in
the sunshine of such a day as this, away back in sixteen hundred and
something. I can see neat, consciously aristocratic and good Dominie
Mutzelius or Dominie Ritzema in irreproachable black, with a touch of
white, going as guest to Sunday dinner at Philipsburg Manor, after the
"great people" had listened to his eloquence, seated in their cushioned
"boxes" in the seven-windowed church. There are only six windows now;
but in those days you had to keep your window and weather eye open, even
during the dominie's discourse, for Indians might take a fancy to scalp
the congregation if it could be taken unawares. Luckily the lord of the
manor, and his friends, and the sturdy farmers with their families, were
not to be caught napping, even if the sermon were dull and the weather
hot. Besides, in case of emergency, they could turn their church into a
fort at a few minutes' notice. The walls were nearly three feet thick;
the seven windows were barred with iron, and so high up that, if the
Indians wanted to peep, they had to climb on each other's shoulders. As
for the doors, they could hardly be knocked in with a battering ram; so
you had no excuse to stop at home on Sunday, even in "Indian Summer." Of
course we went to see the grave where all that is mortal of Washington
Irving lies in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery; and the famous bridge--or,
rather, the new edition of it built by William Rockefeller.
Do you remember that Major Andre was taken on the Albany Post Road at
Tarrytown on his way to New York, with dispatches from the traitor
Benedict Arnold hidden in his stockings? I've always had a sneaking
sympathy with Andre, because he was gallant and young and good looking,
but Tarrytown isn't the place, I find, in which to express any such
sentimental feeling. He is still the villain of the piece there, a mere
spy, travelling in disguise, a treacherous wretch who long and
stealthily worked to corrupt a hitherto honourable general. He is the
villain, and David Williams, John Paulding, and Isaac Van Waart, the
scouting militiamen who took and searched him, are the heroes of that
drama of 1780. Tarrytown people are delighted to this day that Andre was
hanged, and they love the monument to his captors who wouldn't be bribed
by horse, or watch, or money. I suppose if Andre hadn't offered those
bribes, or said he belonged to the "Southern party," they might never
have thought of his stockings, he would have got safely to the waiting
ship, and on to New York; and Benedict Arnold would have surrendered
West Point to the British!
Heaps of other exciting things helped to make Tarrytown historic: an
Indian massacre, a big battle in the Revolution, Major Hunt's "bag of
British soldiers at Van Tassel's Tavern when he won fame by his shout,
'Gentlemen, clubs are trumps!'" and so on. But we took even more
interest in the old legends of Spook Rock, and Andre's ghost and Cuffy's
Prophecy and the Flying Dutchman, who of course tacks back and forth
across the Tappan Zee. Such things are so much more real than facts!
Besides, we had to "get on--get on!" that war cry of motoring men.
We did get on, along the smooth brick road to Ossining, which is really
Sing Sing, you know (or ought to, if you don't), only Ossining is the
old Indian name, so they took it back to escape the blight. It's such a
pretty town that it would have been a shame to associate it only with
the state prison, whose high gray walls are the only grim thing in the
landscape. It was for the sake of staring at them, though, and shivering
down our spines that we took the detour to Ossining. When we had
shivered enough we turned back to Tarrytown and drove our motors like
docile cattle on board a steam ferryboat which took us across the river
to Nyack, the dearest, quaintest of little Dutch towns. It looks as lazy
as, and more obstinately old-fashioned than, Tarrytown, though Tarrytown
is far more important and impressive.
There's a colony of frame houses in Nyack which makes you feel you've
suddenly tripped and stumbled out of the twentieth century back into the
early nineteenth; and we lunched in a charming little hotel that gave us
things to eat equal to any restaurant in New York.
We had a divine run from Nyack, through a fairy forest, with Hook
Mountain in sight and the Ramapo Hills on the horizon. Hook Mountain
glowed a bright rose colour wherever its green cloak was torn; and when
we came into sudden sight of the river there was a magical effect: a
veil of silver mist, with boats big and little moving behind it, like
white swans. We had woods all the way to Rockland Lake, where the great
icehouses loomed like queer castles, until we ran down to lake-level and
lost the illusion. Then we turned in the direction of Haverstraw, going
through the nice old-fashioned village of Congers. The hills and tiny
valleys were as gay and pretty as the summer day! We could hardly
realize that we weren't very far from New York, it all seemed such
lovely _lost_ country, private and purposely hidden, as if strangers had
no right to be there.
Soon the gay little hills were playing they were mountains, and almost
making us believe that they really were. The roadsides were like rock
gardens, spangled pink and gold and blue. Far below lay the river, but
it looked vast enough to be a wide lake; and always the "surface" was so
perfect we had the sensations of flying. At Haverstraw we were by the
river, and even the brick-fields contrived to take on a gorgeous,
glittering colour in the afternoon sun. Stony Point, a high rocky
promontory just above, is the place where "Mad Anthony Wayne" stormed
the fortress thought to be impregnable. The British called it "Little
Gibraltar." Jack had been looking out for that and the ruins of the old
fort, because daredevil Wayne is quite one of his heroes. The whole
peninsula here is a public park, so no wonder everything is beautifully
kept!
I think we got lost after this, owing to Ed Caspian, who led the
procession and was sure he knew the way. However, we reached West Point
somehow, after two or three wrong but delicious detours, returning on
our own tracks each time. Jack and I didn't care, but we could see the
back of Mrs. Shuster's head sulking itself almost off, and Patsey's hat
looking careworn and sad. It must have been wretched for her, seeing all
these heavenly things with nobody except Ed Caspian to say "Oh!" to:
flowery meadows, weeping willows like waving fountains of silver, cedars
stalking among them like tall black monks, dark bulks of near mountains,
blue ghosts of far ones; ferns and wild flowers sprouting from every
rock; here and there a shining streak of waterfall. What matter if we
did go wrong, and risk missing West Point to reach Tuxedo, instead of
saving the latter till next day? We spared ourselves that mistake, and
came back to the right road after twice passing a glorified log cabin of
an inn all balconies and rich brown wood on a stone foundation.
Mountains seemed to reach toward each other across the shining river,
and then to open out into a long corridor, dark walled and paved with
silver. There was a lake with an island and a pavilion: Iona Island--too
beautiful to pass as we did pass; a bridge over a steep rocky gorge, and
a river-glimpse mysterious as the backgrounds of old Italian pictures.
But we turned away from it into woods--deep forests of cedars fragrant
as smoking incense, and at last--rather late because of side
wanderings--we came to Highland Falls.
I remember your telling me that your first love was a West Point cadet,
who proposed to you on your sixteenth birthday in "Flirtation Walk."
Lucky you! But this was my first glimpse of the place as we drove
through gates from Highland Falls into the Government Reservation. We
meant to arrive, shed the dust at our hotel, and then saunter forth for
dress parade, but instead of that we had to see the great sight of the
day sitting in our motors. The poor Hippopotamus did look antediluvian
among all the smart cars and carriages assembled! But the rest of us
weren't so bad, even after a day's run, and, anyhow, we had no time to
think of ourselves, there was too much else to think of.