RIP VAN WINKLE'S AWAKENING.

PART I.

IRVING.

- it was a bright sunny morning.

I. ON waking, Rip found himself on the green knoll overlooking the glen. He rubbed his eyes The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.

66

Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night."

the

"Oh! that

2. He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep mountain ravine the party at nine-pins- the flagon. wicked flagon!" thought Rip; "what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?"

3. He looked round for his gun; but, in place of the clean, welloiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, 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, robbed him of his gun.

4. Wolf, too, had disappeared; but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or a 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.

5. 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."

6. With some difficulty he got down into the glen. He found the gully up which he 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.

7. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witchhazel; and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path.

8. Here poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was answered only by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, which were sporting high in air about a withered tree that overhung a sunny precipice, and which, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise; and, whenever they cast 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!

12. 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.

13. 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; everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.

14. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but a day before. There stood the Catskill 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!

15. It was with some difficulty that he found the 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.

16. A half-starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking 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 "has forgotten me!"

dog," sighed poor Rip,

17. 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.

RIP VAN WINKLE'S AWAKENING.

PART II

18. 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."

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of hand-bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens -- election -- members of Congress-liberty — Bunker's Hill - heroes of seventy-six-and other words that were a perfect jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.

23. The appearance of Rip with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians.

24. They crowded round him, eying 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 started in vacant stupidity.

25. 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.

26. Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend this 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 the left with his elbows as he passed; and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm a-kimbo, 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.

27. "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!”

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. "Well, who are they? Name them." Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where is Nicholas Vedder?"

31. There was 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 about him, but that is rotten and gone too."