Washington Irving
This book is the result of actual work with first year High School pupils. Furthermore, the completed text has been tried out with them. Their difficulties, standards of reading, and the average development of their minds and taste have constantly been remembered. Whatever teaching quality the book may possess is due to their criticisms.
Hearty thanks are due Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, and The Houghton Mifflin Company for gracious permission to use copyrighted material.
Mankind has always loved to tell stories and to listen to them. The most primitive and unlettered peoples and tribes have always shown and still show this universal characteristic. As far back as written records go we find stories; even before that time, they were handed down from remote generations by oral tradition. The wandering minstrel followed a very ancient profession. Before him was his prototype—the man with the gift of telling stories over the fire at night, perhaps at the mouth of a cave. The Greeks, who ever loved to hear some new thing, were merely typical of the ready listeners.
In the course of time the story passed through many forms and many phases—the myth, e.g. The Labors of Hercules; the legend, e.g. St. George and the Dragon; the fairy tale, e.g. Cinderella; the fable, e.g. The Fox and the Grapes; the allegory, e.g. Addison's The Vision of Mirza; the parable, e.g. The Prodigal Son. Sometimes it was merely to amuse, sometimes to instruct. With this process are intimately connected famous books, such as "The Gesta Romanorum" (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the Romans) and famous writers like Boccaccio.
Gradually there grew a body of rules and a technique, and men began to write about the way stories should be composed, as is seen in Aristotle's statement that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Definitions were made and the elements named. In the fullness of time story-telling became an art.
Similar stories are to be found in many different literatures because human nature is fundamentally the same the world over; that is, people are swayed by the same motives, such as love, hate, fear, and the like. Another reason for this similarity is the fact that nations borrowed stories from other nations, changing the names and circumstances. Writers of power took old and crude stories and made of them matchless tales which endure in their new form, e.g. Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter. Finally the present day dawned and with it what we call the short-story.
The short-story—Prof. Brander Matthews has suggested the hyphen to differentiate it from the story which is merely short and to indicate that it is a new species[1]—is a narrative which is short and has unity, compression, originality, and ingenuity, each in a high degree.[2] The notion of shortness as used in this definition may be inexactly though easily grasped by considering the length of the average magazine story. Compression means that nothing must be included that can be left out. Clayton Hamilton expresses this idea by the convenient phrase "economy of means."[3] By originality is meant something new in plot, point, outcome, or character. (See Introduction III for a discussion of these terms.) Ingenuity suggests cleverness in handling the theme. The short-story also is impressionistic because it leaves to the reader the reconstruction from hints of much of the setting and details.
Mr. Hamilton has also constructed another useful definition. He says: "The aim of a short-story is to produce a single narrative effect with the greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost emphasis."[4]
However, years before, in 1842, in his celebrated review of Hawthorne's Tales[5] Edgar Allan Poe had laid down the same theory, in which he emphasizes what he elsewhere calls, after Schlegel, the unity or totality of interest, i.e. unity of impression, effect, and economy. Stevenson, too, has written critically of the short-story, laying stress on this essential unity, pointing out how each effect leads to the next, and how the end is part of the beginning.[6]
America may justly lay claim to this new species of short narrative. Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century there had begun to appear in this country stories showing variations from the English type of story which "still bore upon it marks of its origin; it was either a hard, formal, didactic treatise, derived from the moral apologue or fable; or it was a sentimental love-tale derived from the artificial love-romance that followed the romance of chivalry."[7] The first one to stand out prominently is Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, which was published in 1820. This story, while more leisurely and less condensed than the completely developed form of the short-story, had the important element of humor, as well as freshness, grace, and restraint, nothing being said that should not be said.
The next writer in the order of development is Edgar Allan Poe, whose Berenice appeared in 1835. With it the short-story took definite form. Poe's contribution is structure and technique; that is, he definitely introduced the characteristics noted in the definition—unity, compression, originality, and ingenuity. With almost mathematical precision he sets out to obtain an effect. To quote from his before-mentioned review of Hawthorne his own words which are so definite as almost to compose a formula of his way of writing a short-story and are so thoughtful as to be nearly the summary of any discussion of the subject: "A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents—he then combines such events—as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preëstablished design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel." It is to be noted that Poe roused interest in his effect by the method of suspense, that is, by holding back the solution of the plot, by putting off telling what the reader wants to know, though he continually aggravates the desire to know by constant hints, the full significance of which is only realized when the story is done. His stories are of two main classes: what have been called stories of "impressionistic terror," that is, stories of great fear induced in a character by a mass of rather vague and unusual incidents, such as The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1843); and stories of "ratiocination," that is, of the ingenious thinking out of a problem, as The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1843). In the latter type he is the originator of the detective story.
The writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne exhibit the next stage of development. While lacking some of the technical excellence of Poe by often not knowing how to begin or how to end a story, by sacrificing economy or compression, yet he presented something new in making a story of situation, that is, by putting a character in certain circumstances and working out the results, as The Birthmark (1843). His stories also fall into two groups, the imaginative, like Howe's Masquerade (1838), and the moralizing introspective, or, as they have been called, the "moral-philosophic," that is, stories which look within the human mind and soul and deal with great questions of conduct, such as The Ambitious Guest (1837). Hawthorne was the descendant of Puritans, men given to serious thought and sternly religious. It is this strain of his inheritance which is evidenced in the second group. In all his writing there is some outward symbol of the circumstances or the state of mind. It is seen, for example, in The Minister's Black Veil (1835).
In 1868 was published Luck of Roaring Camp, by Bret Harte. In this story and those that immediately followed, the author advanced the development of the short-story yet another step by introducing local color. Local color means the peculiar customs, scenery, or surroundings of any kind, which mark off one place from another. In a literary sense he discovered California of the days of the early rush for gold. Furthermore, he made the story more definite. He confined it to one situation and one effect, thus approaching more to what may be considered the normal form.
With the form of the short-story fairly worked out, the next development is to be noted in the tone and subject matter. Local color became particularly evident, humor became constantly more prominent, and then the analysis of the working of the human mind, psychologic analysis, held the interest of some foremost writers. Stories of these various kinds came to the front about the third quarter of the last century. "Mark Twain" (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and Frank R. Stockton preëminently and admirably present the humor so peculiarly an American trait. Local color had its exponents in George W. Cable, who presented Louisiana; "Charles Egbert Craddock" (Miss M. N. Murfree), who wrote of Tennessee; Thomas Nelson Page, who gave us Virginia; and Miss M. E. Wilkins (Mrs. Charles M. Freeman), who wrote of New England, to mention only the most notable. With psychologic analysis the name of Henry James is indissolubly linked. The Passionate Pilgrim (1875) may be taken as an excellent example of his work.
By this time the American short-story had crossed to England and found in Robert Louis Stevenson an artist who could handle it with consummate skill. He passed it on a more finished and polished article than when he received it, because by a long course of self-training he had become a master in the use of words. His stories remind one of Hawthorne because there is generally in them some underlying moral question, some question of human action, something concerning right and wrong. But they also have another characteristic which is more obvious to the average reader—their frank romance. By romance is meant happenings either out of the usual course of events, such as the climax of Lochinvar, or events that cannot occur.
The latest stage in the development of the short-story is due to Rudyard Kipling, who has made it generally more terse, has filled it with interest in the highest degree, has found new local color, chiefly in India, and has given it virility and power. His subject matter is, in the main, interesting to all kinds of readers. His stories likewise fulfill all the requirements of the definition. Being a living genius he is constantly showing new sides of his ability, his later stories being psychologic. His writings fall into numerous groups—soldier tales; tales of machinery; of animals; of the supernatural; of native Indian life; of history; of adventure;—the list could be prolonged. Sometimes they are frankly tracts, sometimes acute analyses of the working of the human mind.
So in the course of a little less than a century there has grown to maturity a new kind of short narrative identified with American Literature and the American people, exhibiting the foremost traits of the American character, and written by a large number of authors of different rank whose work, of a surprisingly high average of technical excellence, appears chiefly in the magazines.
Though the short-story has achieved a normal or general form of straightforward narrative, as in Kipling's An Habitation Enforced or Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews' Amici, yet it exhibits many variations in presentation. Sometimes it is a series of letters as in James' A Bundle of Letters, sometimes a group of narrative, letters, and telegrams as in Thomas Bailey Aldrich's Marjorie Daw; again, a letter and a paragraph as in Henry Cuyler Bunner's A Letter and a Paragraph, or a gathering of letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, and advertisements as Bunner and Matthews' Documents in the Case.
Again it may be told in the first person as in Stevenson's Pavilion on the Links, or in the third person as in Kipling's The Bridge Builders. Yet again it may be a conundrum as Stockton's famous The Lady or the Tiger!
But besides the forms due to the manner of presentation there are other forms due to the emphasis placed on one of the three elements of a narrative—-action, character, and setting. Consequently using this principle of classification we have three forms which may be exemplified by Kipling's William the Conqueror, wherein action is emphasized; his Tomb of His Ancestors, wherein character is emphasized; and his An Error in the Fourth Dimension, wherein setting is emphasized.
Using yet another principle of classification—material—we obtain: stories of dramatic interest, that is, of some striking happening that would hold the audience of a play in a highly excited state, as Stevenson's Sire de Malétroit's Door; of love, as Bunner's Love in Old Cloathes; of romantic adventure, as Kipling's Man Who Would Be King; of terror, as Poe's Pit and the Pendulum; of the supernatural, as Crawford's The Upper Berth; of humor, as humor, as Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews' A Good Samaritan; of animals, as Kipling's Rikki-tikki-tavi; of psychological analysis, as James' Madonna of the Future; and so on.
All the previous discussion must not obscure the fact that the short-story is a form of narration and subject to all that pertains thereto. Now what is narration and what does it imply?
Narration is that form of discourse which presents a series of events in the order of time. Events or action presuppose actors, or characters as they are generally called, and a place where the action may take place; likewise time and circumstances within which the actors act. These three, which may be conveniently spoken of as actors, action, and environment, are three of the elements of narration. But there is a fourth. To make an interesting story there must be something for the chief character, technically called the protagonist, to overcome, such as an adversary, a situation, or an idea, which thing is called the obstacle. Furthermore, there must be something in the story near the beginning which brings the protagonist into conflict with the obstacle. Often this conflict, technically the collision, is brought about by another character. But it may be some happening. Whatever it is, it is called the complicating force. Then again, toward the end of the story, there is something else which either helps the protagonist to overcome the obstacle, or the obstacle to overcome the protagonist. This is called the resolving force.
As these two forces work in different parts of the story, the action is conveniently divided into parts to which names have been attached. First comes the introduction or proposition, wherein the time, place, circumstances, and protagonist are presented; then the entanglement, wherein the protagonist is brought into collision with the obstacle by the complicating force, and the interest begins to deepen. Next we have the climax, in which the struggle, and consequently the interest, are at their height; and this in turn is followed by the resolution, where the resolving force works and the knot begins to be untied. Finally there is the dénouement or conclusion.
The career of each character may be conveniently spoken of as a line of interest. When the lines of interest become entangled we have the plot.
The following diagram illustrates to the eye the development of a story. Of course it must be distinctly understood that no story is the result of a mere substitution in a formula. Sometimes the various steps in the working-out of a story overlap in such a manner that its development according to a prescribed plan is not apparent.
Small c is sometimes called the crisis, being the point at which the action is most intense and begins to turn toward the end.
1. Aldrich: Marjorie Daw.
2. Quite So.
3. Andrews: Amici.
4. The Glory of the Commonplace.
5. A Good Samaritan.
6. Bunner: "As One Having Authority."
7. Love in Old Cloathes.
8. Bunner and Matthews: Documents in the Case.
9. Cable: Posson Jone.
10. Child: The Man in the Shadow.
11. Clemens: Jumping Frog.
12. Cobb: To the Editor of the Sun.
13. Colcord: The Game of Life and Death.
14. Davis, R. H.: The Bar Sinister.
15. Gallegher.
16. The Lion and the Unicorn.
17. Doyle: The Red-Headed League.
18. A Scandal in Bohemia.
19. The Striped Chest.
20. Through the Veil.
21. Garland: The Return of a Private.
22. Gerould: On the Staircase.
23. Hale: The Man without a Country.
24. Hardy: The Three Strangers.
25. Harris: The Wonderful Tar Baby.
26. Harte: Luck of Roaring Camp.
27. Tennessee's Partner.
28. Hawthorne: The Ambitious Guest.
29. Ethan Brand.
30. The Gray Champion.
31. The Great Stone Face.
32. "O. Henry": Friends in San Rosario.
33. Jimmie Hayes and Muriel.
34. Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
35. The Spectre Bridegroom.
36. James: A Passionate Pilgrim.
37. Janvier: In the St. Peter's Set.
38. The Passing of Thomas.
39. Jewett: A Native of Winby.
40. Kipling: The Brushwood Boy.
41. An Habitation Enforced.
42. The Maltese Cat.
43. My Lord the Elephant.
44. Rikki-tikki-tavi.
45. They.
46. The Tomb of His Ancestors.
47. Wee Willie Winkie.
48. William the Conqueror.
49. London: The White Silence.
50. Morris: The Trap.
51. Murfree: The "Harnt" that Walks Chilhowee.
52. Page: Marse Chan.
53. Meh Lady.
54. Polly.
55. Parker: The Stake and the Plumb Line.
56. Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher.
57. The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
58. The Pit and the Pendulum.
59. Roberts: From the Teeth of the Tide.
60. Spearman: Jimmie the Wind.
61. Smith, F. H.: Colonel Carter of Cartersville.
62. Stevenson: The Bottle Imp.
63. A Lodging for the Night.
64. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
65. The Merry Men.
66. The Pavilion on the Links.
67. Stockton: The Lady or the Tiger?
68. The Transferred Ghost.
69. A Story of Seven Devils.
70. Van Dyke: The Blue Flower.
71. Wilkins (Freeman): A New England Nun.
72. The Revolt of Mother.
Baldwin, Charles Sears. American Short-stories. Longmans, Green, & Co., 1904.
Canby, Henry Seidel, A Study of the Short-story. Henry Holt & Co., 1913.
Dawson, W. J. AND Coningsby, The Great English Short-story Writers. Harper and Brothers, 1910.
Hamilton, Clayton, Materials and Methods of Fiction (Chapters X and XI). Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908.
Matthews, Brander, The Short-story. American Book Co., 1907.
Perry, Bliss, A Study of Prose Fiction (Chapter XII). Houghton Mifflin Co., 1902.
Smith, C. Alphonso, The American Short-story. Ginn & Co., 1912.
[Pg xxviii]
[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore, so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm.
The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable authority.
The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affection; yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected, that he never intended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folks, whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne's Farthing.]
A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
By Woden, God of Saxons,
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 gray 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, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.
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 broom-stick 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 village; which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, 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 looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its 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 one another, 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, toward 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 and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and 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 nine-pins. 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 beard, 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 stared 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 together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg 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 overpowered, 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 woe-begone party at nine-pins—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 roysters 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.