Short Stories Old and New Part 7

"Merchant!" answered she; "he is as much one as I am."

Then she led him into the house, and told of all that she had done, from the first noticing of the chalk-mark to the death of the robbers and the flight of their captain. On hearing of these brave deeds from Morgiana's own lips, Ali Baba said to her:--

"G.o.d, by your means, has delivered me from death. For the first token of what I owe you, I give you your liberty from this moment, till I can fully reward you as I intend."

Near the trees at the end of Ali Baba's long garden, he and Abdalla dug a trench large enough to hold the bodies of the robbers. When they were buried there, Ali Baba hid the jars and weapons; and as the mules were of no use to him, he sent them at different times to be sold in the market by his slave.

V

THE CAPTAIN DISCOVERED AND KILLED BY MORGIANA

The captain of the forty robbers had returned to his cave in the forest, but found himself so lonely there that the place became frightful to him. He resolved at the same time to avenge the fate of his comrades, and to bring about the death of Ali Baba. For this purpose he returned to the town, disguised as a merchant of silks. By degrees he brought from his cavern many sorts of fine stuffs, and to dispose of these he took a warehouse that happened to be opposite Ca.s.sim's, which Ali Baba's son had occupied since the death of his uncle.

He took the name of Cogia Houssain, and as a newcomer was very civil to the merchants near him. Ali Baba's son was one of the first to converse with him, and the new merchant was most friendly. Within two or three days Ali Baba came to see his son, and the captain of the robbers knew him at once, and soon learned from his son who he was. From that time forth he was still more polite to Ali Baba's son, who soon felt bound to repay the many kindnesses of his new friend.

As his own house was small, he arranged with his father that on a certain afternoon, when he and the merchant were pa.s.sing by Ali Baba's house, they should stop, and he should ask them both to sup with him.

This plan was carried out, though at first the merchant, with whose own plans it agreed perfectly, made as if to excuse himself. He even gave it as a reason for not remaining that he could eat no salt in his victuals.

"If that is all," said Ali Baba, "it need not deprive me of the honor of your company"; and he went to the kitchen and told Morgiana to put no salt into anything she was cooking that evening.

Thus Cogia Houssain was persuaded to stay, but to Morgiana it seemed very strange that any one should refuse to eat salt. She wished to see what manner of man it might be, and to this end, when she had finished what she had to do in the kitchen, she helped Abdalla carry up the dishes. Looking at Cogia Houssain, she knew him at first sight, in spite of his disguise, to be the captain of the robbers, and, scanning him very closely, saw that he had a dagger under his garment.

"I see now why this greatest enemy of my master would eat no salt with him. He intends to kill him; but I will prevent him."

While they were at supper Morgiana made up her mind to do one of the boldest deeds ever conceived. She dressed herself like a dancer, girded her waist with a silver-gilt girdle, from which hung a poniard, and put a handsome mask on her face. Then, when the supper was ended, she said to Abdalla:--

"Take your tabor, and let us go and divert our master and his son's friend, as we sometimes do when he is alone."

They presented themselves at the door with a low bow, and Morgiana was bidden to enter and show Cogia Houssain how well she danced. This, he knew, would interrupt him in carrying out his wicked purpose, but he had to make the best of it, and to seem pleased with Morgiana's dancing. She was indeed a good dancer, and on this occasion outdid herself in graceful and surprising motions. At the last, she took the tabor from Abdalla's hand, and held it out like those who dance for money.

Ali Baba put a piece of gold into it, and so did his son. When Cogia Houssain saw that she was coming to him, he pulled out his purse from his bosom to make her a present; but while he was putting his hand into it, Morgiana, with courage worthy of herself, plunged the poniard into his heart.

"Unhappy woman!" exclaimed Ali Baba, "what have you done to ruin me and my family?"

"It was to preserve, not to ruin you," answered Morgiana. Then she showed the dagger in Cogia Houssain's garment, and said: "Look well at him, and you will see that he is both the pretended oil-merchant and the captain of the band of forty robbers. As soon as you told me that he would eat no salt with you, I suspected who it was, and when I saw him, I knew."

Ali Baba embraced her, and said: "Morgiana, I gave you your liberty before, and promised you more in time; now I would make you my daughter-in-law. Consider," he said, turning to his son, "that by marrying Morgiana, you marry the preserver of my family and yours."

The son was all the more ready to carry out his father's wishes, because they were the same as his own, and within a few days he and Morgiana were married, but before this, the captain of the robbers was buried with his comrades, and so secretly was it done, that their bones were not found till many years had pa.s.sed, when no one had any concern in making this strange story known.

For a whole year Ali Baba did not visit the robbers' cave. At the end of that time, as n.o.body had tried to disturb him, he made another journey to the forest, and, standing before the entrance to the cave, said: "Open, Sesame." The door opened at once, and from the appearance of everything within the cavern, he judged that n.o.body had been there since the captain had fetched the goods for his shop. From this time forth, he took as much of the treasure as his needs demanded. Some years later he carried his son to the cave, and taught him the secret, which he handed down in his family, who used their good fortune wisely, and lived in great honor and splendor.

III. RIP VAN WINKLE[*] (1819)

[* From "The Sketch Book." The elaborate Knickerbocker notes with which Irving, following a pa.s.sing fashion of the time, sought to mystify the reader, are here omitted. They are hindrances now rather than helps.]

BY WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859)

[_Setting_. The Hudson River and the Kaatskill Mountains were first brought into literature through this story, Irving being the first American master of local color and local tradition. Since 1870 the American short story, following the example of Irving, has been the leading agency by which the South, the West, and New England have made known and thus perpetuated their local scenery, legends, customs, and dialect. Irving, however, seemed afraid of dialect. There were, it is true, many legends about the Hudson before Irving was born, but they had found no expression in literature. Mrs. Josiah Quincy, who made a voyage up the Hudson in 1786, wrote: "Our captain had a legend for every scene, either supernatural or traditional or of actual occurrence during the war, and not a mountain reared its head unconnected with some marvellous story." Irving, therefore, did not have to manufacture local traditions; he only gave them wider currency and fitted them more artistically into their natural settings.

Irving chose for his setting the twenty years that embrace the Revolutionary War because the numerous social and political changes that took place then enabled him to bring Rip back after his sleep into a "world not realized." You will appreciate much better the art of this time-setting if you will try your hand on a somewhat similar story and place it between 1820 and 1840, when railroads, telegraph lines, and transatlantic steamers made a new world out of the old; or, if your story takes place in the South, you might make your background include the interval between 1855 and 1875, when slavery was abolished, when the old plantation system was changed, when the names of new heroes emerged, and when new social and political and industrial problems had to be grappled with.

_Plot_. The plot is divided into two almost equal parts, which we may call "before and after taking." A recent critic has said: "The actual forward movement of the plot does not begin until the sentence, '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.'" The critic has missed, I think, the main structural excellence of the story.

Dame Van Winkle, the children who hung around Rip, his own children, his dog, the social club at the inn with the portrait of George the Third, Van b.u.mmel, and Nicholas Vedder, all had to be mentioned before Rip began the ascent of the mountain. Otherwise, when he returned, we should have had no means of measuring the swift pa.s.sage of time during his sleep. Each is a skillfully set timepiece or milepost which, on Rip's return, misleads the poor fellow at every turn and thus produces the exact kind of "totality of effect" that Irving intended. The forward movement of the plot begins with this careful planning of the route that Rip is to take on his return trip, when twenty years shall have done their work. Cut out these _points de repere_ and see how effectively the forward movement of the plot is r.e.t.a.r.ded.

_Characters_. Rip was the first character in American fiction to be known far beyond our own borders, and he remains one of the best known.

In the cla.s.s with him belong James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking (or Natty b.u.mppo), Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom, Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus, and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He has been called un-American, and so he is, and so Irving plainly intended him to be. If one insists on finding a bit of distinctive Americanism somewhere in the story, he will find it not in Rip but in the number and rapidity of the changes that American life underwent during the twenty years that serve as background to the story. George William Curtis calls Rip "the constant and unconscious satirist of American life," but surely Irving would have smiled at finding so purposeful a mission laid upon the stooping shoulders of his vagabond ne'er-do-well hero. Rip is no satirist, conscious or unconscious. He is a provincial Dutch type, such as Irving had seen a hundred times; but he is so lovable and is sketched so lovingly that we hardly realize the consummate art, the human sympathy, and the keen powers of observation that have gone into his making. Every other character in the story, including Wolf, is a sidelight on Rip. Of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Irving said: "The story is a mere whimsical band to connect the descriptions of scenery, customs, manners, etc." The emphasis, in other words, was put on the setting. Of "Rip Van Winkle" might he not have said, "The descriptions of scenery, customs, manners, etc. are but so many channels through which the character of Rip finds outlet and expression"?]

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 n.o.ble 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 time 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 weatherc.o.c.ks.

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 henpecked husband.

Indeed, to the latter circ.u.mstance 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 s.e.x, 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 a.s.sisted 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 a.s.siduity 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 a.s.sist 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 n.o.body. 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 henpecked husband.

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods--but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the 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 pa.s.sing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van b.u.mmel, 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 a.s.semblage 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 gla.s.sy 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 s.h.a.gged, 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.