This description is as perfect and as delightful as any in the English language.  Any one who cannot enjoy this has no perception of human nature, and no love of humor in his composition.  In time Rip discovered that his only escape from his termagant wife was to take his gun, and stroll off into the woods with his dog.  “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 into his master’s face, and if dogs can feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated with all his heart.”

Rip is just the sort of fellow to have some sort of adventure, and we are not at all astonished when we find him helping the dwarf carry his keg of liquor up the mountain.  The description of “the odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins” whom he finds on entering the amphitheater, is a perfect picture in words; for the truly great writer is a painter of pictures quite as much as the great artist.

“They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts.  Their visages, too, were peculiar:  one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock’s tail.  They all had beards of various shapes and colors.  There was one who seemed to be the commander.  He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them....  What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed.  Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.”

But now comes a surprise.  Rip indulges too freely in the contents of the keg and falls asleep.  When he wakes he finds a rusty old gun beside him, and he whistles in vain for his dog.  He goes back to the village; but every thing and everybody is strange and changed.  Putting his hand to his chin he finds that his beard has grown a foot.  He has been sleeping twenty years.

But you must read the story for yourselves.  It will bear reading many times, and each time you will find in it something to smile at and enjoy.

CHAPTER XI

LITERARY SUCCESS IN ENGLAND

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” also purports to be written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, and it is only less famous than “Rip Van Winkle.”  When he was a boy, Irving had gone hunting in Sleepy Hollow, which is not far from New York city; and in the latter part of his life he bought a low stone house there of Mr. Van Tassel and fitted it up for his bachelor home.