Languages & literature > Beauties of Washington Irving

16
BEAUTIES OF
by acre, until there was little more left than a mere
patch of Indian com and potatoes, yet it was the worse
conditioned farm in the neighbourhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they
belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten
in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits with
the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen
trooping like a colt at his mother’s heels, equipped in a
pair of his father’s cast off galligaskins, which he had
much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does
her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy
mortals, of foolish, well oiled dispositions, who take the
world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be
got with least thought or trouble, and would rather
starve on a pen\^ than work for a pound. If left to
himself, he would ha've'whistled life away in perfect con¬
tentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in his
ears abode his idleness, his carelessness, and the min he
was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night,
her tongue was incessantly going, and every thing he said
or did was sure to produce a torrent of household elo¬
quence. Rip had but one way of replying to all lectures
of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had got into a
habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast
up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always
provoked a fresh volley from his wife; so that he was
fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the
house—the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen¬
pecked husband.
Rip’s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who
was as much hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van
Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and
even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of
his master’s going so often astray. True it is, in all
points of spirit befitting an honourable dog, he was as
courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods—but
what courage can withstand the ever-during and all be¬
setting terrors of a woman’s tongue? The moment
Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to