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. 11. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the graybearded 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 has never 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.” 12. 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 bloodvessel 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 am your father!" cried he. "Young Rip Van Winkle once, old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?" 13. 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. 14. 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 as one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits. He soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather worse for the wear and tear of time, and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor. Irving's gift of exquisite humor was closely allied with tender human sympathies, which he could pathetically express as well for imaginary as for real grief, as is shown by the following selection, from another article in the Sketch Book, entitled "Rural Funerals," suggested by witnessing the custom, in some parts of England, of strewing flowers before funeral processions, and planting them at the graves of departed friends. III.-Sorrow for the Dead. 1. The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. 2. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? 3. No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? 4. Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the charms of the living. 5. O, the grave! the grave! It buries every errer, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him? 6. But the grave of those we loved-what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene-the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendants, its mute, watchful assiduities-the last testimonies of expiring love-the feeble, fluttering, thrilling-O how thrilling!-pressure of the hand-the last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence-the faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection. 7. Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never-never-never return to be soothed by thy contrition! 8. If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silver brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. 9. Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender yet futile tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living. Near "Sleepy Hollow," the scene of the legend of that name, ever fresh with its memories of the lovely Katrina and the schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, Irving retired at last, to pass an honored old age in "Sunny-Side," where the house and its appointments were full of souvenirs of the author's literary work, as Abbotsford was of Scott's; and through the Sleepy Hollow the funeral cavalcade bore his remains to their last resting-place. CHAPTER XLIV.-MISCELLANEOUS. I.-The Flemish Bells. A Simile. [The bells cast by the famous moulder Van den Gheyn, of Louvain, are said to have lost all the sweetness they had a hundred years ago.] 1. Sadly he shook his frosted head, Listening and leaning on his cane; "Nay-I am like the bells," he said, Cast by the moulder of Louvain. 2. "Often you've read of their mystic powers, 3. "Never such bells as those were heard, 4. "There in Louvain they swing to-day, Up in the turrets where long they've swung; 5. "Over them shines the same pale sky, As from a nest, the same sweet tunes; 6. "Ever the same,-and yet we know Were, with the wonder of their chimes. |