The Strange Story Book Part 6

These gatherings were presided over by Nicholas Vedder the landlord, who said little but smoked his pipe and looked wise.

For a while Rip was left in peace and enjoyed himself; then one day his wife broke in upon the peaceable company and scolded them for their idleness till they all fled in different directions. After that Rip went there no more, but whistled to Wolf, and, taking down his gun, went up into the mountains.

On a fine autumn morning, the two friends went off as usual, and climbed to one of the highest peaks of the Catskills. At length, quite exhausted, Rip threw himself down on a green knoll almost on top of a cliff, and watched the sun sinking slowly in the West. The Hudson river, bounded with woods, could be seen on one side of him; a deep stony glen was on the other; and all about him the stillness seemed in itself to bring rest and peace. But the lengthening shadows gave him warning that he must retrace his steps at once, unless he wished to be barred out of his house, and heavily he rose to his feet and whistled to Wolf, when he heard a voice crying 'Rip van Winkle!'

He looked round with a start, but as he saw nothing but a crow flying home to bed, he thought his ears must have deceived him. He turned again to the path, when a second time the cry sounded, 'Rip van Winkle! Rip van Winkle!' and at the same instant Wolf gave a howl, and his hair stood up as if something terrible was in the neighbourhood. Rip followed the direction of the dog's eyes, which were fixed with an expression of fear on the glen; and Rip, with a sinking of heart that he could not explain, beheld a shadowy figure toiling towards them through the rocks, weighed down by something heavy which it carried on its back.

'Poor old fellow! he can hardly get along. I had better go and help him,' thought Rip, and set off down the path; but when he came near to the stranger he stopped in surprise, for never had he beheld anyone so odd.

The man was old and short and square, with a shock of thick bushy hair, and a long greyish beard. He was dressed after the Dutch fashion of a hundred years back, in a jacket belted round the waist, and several pairs of breeches, each a little longer than the other. On his shoulder was a keg of liquor, nearly as big as himself.

'Let me take that for a bit,' said Rip, and though the dwarf did not understand his words, there was no mistaking the meaning of Rip's outstretched hands. So, carrying the keg by turns they clambered upwards apparently along the bed of a mountain stream, while thunder rolled about them. Now of course, thunder in mountains is common enough, but what was uncommon about _this_ thunder was, that instead of coming from _above_ them, it seemed to issue from a narrow cleft of the rock in front of them, where the path ended.

When they reached the ravine, the dwarf led the way through the cleft and signed to his companion to follow, for they could not walk abreast.

Once through the cleft, Rip found himself in a round, hollow place enclosed by precipices overhung by trees, so that it would be completely concealed from anyone walking on the mountain. The branches and the leaves were so thick that even the bright rays of the setting sun could hardly pierce through them.

At the entrance to the hollow Rip paused again, for before him was a group of little men playing ninepins. Like his guide they wore jerkins and breeches, and knives were stuck in their belts. They were all very ugly, with long beards and large noses, and one who appeared the leader had a high-crowned hat with a feather and high-heeled shoes with roses on them--very unfit, thought Rip, for climbing about those rough paths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RIP FINDS THE DWARFS PLAYING NINEPINS]

As Rip and his companion came out from the cleft, the little men suddenly stopped their game, which they had played in dead silence and without seeming in the least to enjoy it. They turned and looked at the stranger, and Rip felt his blood run cold and his knees knock together.

_Why_ he could not have told, except that their faces had a queer, fixed expression such as he had never seen on the face of any living being.

But no time was allowed him to indulge in these thoughts, for his companion signed to him to fill some big flagons which stood on one side, from the keg they had carried.

When the players had emptied the flagons, they went back to their game, seeming as melancholy as before.

After a while Rip began to grow a little less frightened, and he even ventured, when no one was observing him, to take a good draught out of the keg himself. As soon as he had done so, his eyes and head became very heavy, and he fell down where he stood, sunk in a deep sleep.

It was bright and sunny when Rip woke, lying curled up comfortably on the green knoll from which he had first beheld the old man climbing up the path. The birds were twittering in the bushes and hopping round him, and high up over the tops of the mountains an eagle was soaring.

'Have I really slept here all night?' he said to himself. 'Oh, dear, how angry my wife will be!' Then he sat up, and there rushed into his mind the cleft in the rocks and the little men playing ninepins. 'It was the flagon which was my undoing,' said he.

Scrambling to his feet, he looked about for his gun, but in place of the well-kept weapon, with its shining barrel (the only thing on which Rip ever bestowed any care), he saw an old, rusty firelock, with the wooden stock eaten by worms and falling away.

'Why they have been playing tricks on me and changed my gun!' he exclaimed, 'though they _did_ look so solemn; but what has become of Wolf? Gone after a squirrel, I suppose,' and he whistled loudly to call him back.

But whistle as Rip might, for the first time he heard no bark in answer.

'Oh, well! he will come home when he is tired. I'll go back to that curious place, and tell them I must have my own gun.' But as Rip moved to climb the path he felt his legs stiff, and was obliged to go slowly.

'These mountain roads don't agree with me,' he thought. 'I mustn't be caught in this way a second time,' and with great difficulty he made his way to the gully. But since he saw it last, the face of the glen had altered completely. Instead of the dried-up watercourse through which he and the dwarf had painfully clambered, a torrent was now dashing itself from rock to rock, so that Rip was obliged to take a round-about path through the ma.s.s of shrubs and creepers that clothed the sides of the ravine. Pushing and fighting, he at length reached the spot where the cleft led to the hollow in the rocks. But what a change from the evening before! The opening had entirely vanished, and a high waterfall leapt from above into a round basin. 'Surely this was the place? Yes! I am certain of it!' cried the bewildered Rip, and again he tried to call to Wolf, but his voice died away in his throat.

'Well, I can't starve among the mountains, whatever happens,' he said, with a show of briskness which would not have deceived anybody, if anybody but himself had been there to see; and taking up the old rusty gun, he began to go down the mountain.

As he drew near the village he met several people and was surprised to find they were all strangers to him. 'Where can they all have come from, and who can they be?' he said. 'I didn't think there could be three people for miles round unknown to me. What queer dresses they have on, too! Can they be a crew of foreigners shipwrecked in the Sound, who have strayed up here? If they _are_, they have been pretty quick about it. And really,' he thought as he glanced back over his shoulder and noticed them staring at him, 'they seem to find me as odd as I find them! And why do they all stroke their chins as they look at me? Is anything the matter with _my_ chin?' and as he put his hand up to feel it, he discovered that he had grown a beard a foot long.

By this time he had entered the village street and a group of children gathered at his heels. At that his eyes brightened and his face lost something of its half-puzzled, half-frightened expression. Here, at least, was something to which he was accustomed, but instead of the smiles and shouts of joy which formerly greeted him, these children hooted rudely, and pointed to his beard.

Then indeed Rip's heart began to fail within him. What was the matter that in one night everything had changed so, and nothing seemed as it was only yesterday? And now he came to think of it, after a single night the village appeared much bigger, and the fields that were green when he went up the mountain, were full of houses to-day. Even the very dogs did not know him, and perhaps that was worst of all.

'I am bewitched,' thought Rip. 'It can't all be that flagon.'

He turned to go to his own house, but the very road to it was altered, and he lost his way more than once. At last he struck into a path which he recognised, and he stopped for a moment expecting to hear his wife's voice scolding somebody. But all was still, and as he drew nearer he saw that the roof had fallen in, and the gla.s.s of the windows was broken. A half-starved dog was prowling round, and with a throb of joy Rip whistled and called to him, 'Wolf, Wolf! Come here, good dog!' but the dog snarled and showed his teeth before trotting away.

_Was_ it Wolf, or not? Rip never knew.

Inside, the house was as desolate as without, and very unlike to what Rip had been accustomed to see it. Though he felt it was useless, he shouted the names of his wife and children; then a thrill of fear pa.s.sed over him, and not daring to look behind him, he hurried back to the street.

'I must go and have a drink,' he said. 'Of course, I had no breakfast and that has made my head get queer. A little food will set me to rights.'

So he hastened on to the village inn, and, being busy with his thoughts, walked with his eyes on the ground till his feet unconsciously halted at the old place. Then he glanced up, but only to receive another shock.

The ancient structure with its latticed panes and gabled roof was gone, and instead he beheld a long sort of wooden shed, untidy and dirty, the windows more holes than gla.s.s, and stuffed with old hats or even petticoats to keep out the air. Over the door was painted a sign bearing the words 'Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.' In the room of the great tree in front, where he and his friends had smoked so many pipes, was a pole crowned with a sort of red nightcap from which a flag fluttered. An odd kind of flag it was too, for when the wind blew it out, you saw, not the familiar criss-cross lines of the Union Jack, but stars and stripes which had never appeared on any English banner as far as Rip knew! And when his eyes fell upon the sign where a very pink-faced King George in a red coat was wont to gaze at his loyal subjects, he too had vanished and given place to a gentleman in blue and buff, holding a sword instead of a sceptre, while underneath was painted in large letters

GENERAL WASHINGTON.

From the inn Rip turned to the crowd that stood about it, and even here the strange alteration that pervaded everything and everybody was visible. There was none of the former air of calm and leisure characteristic of the friends who had sat with him round the tree yesterday--or was it a hundred years ago? This crowd was noisy and bustling and inclined to quarrel: full of plans and inventions to judge by the talk, and eager to discuss and find fault with the contents of a handbill, which one of their number was handing about. Rip did not understand much of what they were saying, but he caught such phrases as 'Members of Congress,' 'Bunker's Hill,' 'liberty,' and other expressions as meaningless to him as if they were uttered in a foreign tongue.

It was some time before he noticed that to the villagers on their side he himself was an object of great interest and curiosity. They pressed round him and made remarks to each other about his strange dress and the rust on his gun, while the little man with the handbills pushed his way up to him and inquired 'how he had voted?' which Rip, who had not the least idea what he meant, answered merely with a stare. Another who desired to know 'whether he was Federal or Democrat' fared no better; but a third questioner, who asked why he had come to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels, and if he intended to head a riot, at last gave Rip back his power of speech.

'Alas! gentlemen,' he cried; 'I am a poor, quiet man, a native of this village and a loyal subject of King George.'

The tumult that broke forth at this reply nearly deafened him. 'A spy! a spy!' shouted the people, 'away with him! to the gallows with him!' and it might have gone hardly with Rip had not a man in a c.o.c.ked hat interfered and called them to order. The man next demanded of Rip what he wanted and why he was there, to which Rip humbly made answer that he had come in search of some of his neighbours who had been used to meet him at the tavern.

'Well, give us their names?' said the man in the c.o.c.ked hat.

'Nicholas Vedder, the innkeeper,' answered Rip.

There was a moment's silence; then an old man, in a thin piping voice, spoke.

'Nicholas Vedder? Why, he's dead and gone these eighteen years; and even his wooden tombstone in the churchyard has got rotten.'

'And Brom Dutcher?'

'Oh, he enlisted as a soldier in the beginning of the war. Some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others, that he was drowned in a squall off Antony's Nose. Anyway, he never came back here.'

'And van b.u.mmel, the schoolmaster?'