I may hurt some one in the street. Balth. Why, then, I'll rattle thee to pieces in a dicebox, Or grind thee in a coffee mill to powder, For thou must sup with Pluto:-so, make ready! Lamp. Consider my poor wife. Balth. Thy wife! Lamp. My wife, sir. Balth. Hast thou dared think of matrimony, too? Lamp. O spare me for her sake! I have a wife, and three angelic babes, Who, by those looks, are well nigh fatherless. Balth. Well, well! your wife and children shall plead for you. Come, come; the pills! where are the pills? Pro duce them. Lamp. Here is the box. Balth. Were it Pandora's, and each single pill Had ten diseases in it, you should take them. Lamp. What, all? Balth. Ay, all; and quickly, too. Come, sir, begin(LAMPEDO takes one.) That's well!-Another. Lamp. One's a dose. Balth. Proceed, sir. Lamp. What will become of me? Let me go home, and set my shop to rights, And, like immortal Cæsar, die with decency. Balth. Away! and thank thy lucky star I have not Brayed thee in thine own mortar, or exposed thee For a large specimen of the lizard genus. Lamp. Would I were one! -for they can feed on air. Balth. Home, sir! and be more honest. I'll be more wise, at least. NOTES.-Pluto, in ancient mythology, the god of the lower world. Pandora is described in the Greek legends as the first created woman. She was sent by Jupiter to Epimetheus as a punishment, because the latter's brother, Prometheus, had stolen fire from heaven. When she arrived among men, she opened a box in which were all the evils of mankind, and everything escaped except Hope. LXIII. RIP 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, 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 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 bystanders. -"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 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 churchyard 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 Anthony'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 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 everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell what's my name or who I am!" The bystanders 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 "Hush, Rip!" cried she, "hush, you little fool! the old man won't hurt you." cry. 66 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, 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 am 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. 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. 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. -Irving. NOTES.-Rip Van Winkle, according to Irving's story in "The Sketch Book," was a great drunkard, and was driven from his home in the Catskill Mountains, one night, by his wife. Wandering among the mountains, he fell in with the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson and his crew, with whom he played a game of ninepins. Upon drinking the liquor which they offered him, however, he immediately fell into a deep sleep which lasted for twenty years. The above lesson re |