That his father had once seen them, in their old Dutch dresses, playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain ; and that himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder." Rip's veracity was vindicated ; his daughter gave him a comfortable home ; and the grave historian of the event assures us that the Dutch inhabitants, "even to this day, never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaats-Kill, but they say, Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins."
The Yan Winkle of our day, who lived in the cottage by the mountain road-side as long as a guest lingered at the great mansion above him, was no kin to old Rip, and we strongly suspect that his name was borrowed ; but he kept refreshments that strengthened many a weary toiler up the mountain -- liquors equal, no doubt, to those in the "wicked flagons" that the ancient one served to the ghostly company -- and from a rude spout poured cooling draughts into his cabin from a mountain spring, more delicious than ever came from the juice of the grape.
There are many delightful resting-places upon the road, soon after leaving Rip's cabin, as we toil wearily up the mountain, where the eye takes in a magnificent panorama of hill and valley, forest and river, hamlet and village, and thousands of broad acres where herds graze and the farmer gathers his crops, -- much of it dimly refined because of distance -- a beautifully coloured map rather than a picture. These delight the eye and quicken the pulse, as has been remarked ; but there is one place