Rip Van Winkle
by Washington
Irving
WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson
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
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
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; every
thing 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
dropped 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 run 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 any thing
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 tranquility
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
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
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
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 occurances 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 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 roisters 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 dog and gun. As he
rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the 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 network 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 equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon 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 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—every thing 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 sulking 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 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
around 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 by-standers—"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 say he was
drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's 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 to 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 wit's 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 every thing's changed, and I'm changed, and I
can't tell what's my name, or who I am!"
The by-standers 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 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 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'm 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 nine-pins 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
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 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.
