Tarrytown

“ In later times there lived in Tarrytown—so named because of the tarrying habits of Dutch gossips on market days, though some hard-minded people insist that Tarwe-town means Wheat-towna gaunt schoolmaster, one Ichabod Crane, who cherished sweet sentiments for Katrina Van Tassell, the buxom daughter of a farmer, also a famous maker of pies and doughnuts. Ichabod had been calling late one evening, and, his way home being long, Katrina's father lent him a horse to make the journey; but even with this advantage the youth set out with misgivings, for he had to pass the graveyard. ”

“ But plain people still visited their relatives a good deal. Ben had taken a holiday, and gone up to Tarrytown after Hanny; and they had made pilgrimages along to different cousins. They sat on the old porch at Fordham; but one of the cousins was married, and gone to her own home, taken the tall, bright-eyed young man who had been about so much the olden summer.
It was really a delightful walk over there. Ben was finding out odd places for Delia, who was now interested in some Revolutionary sketches. ”

“ She had come up from West Farms to spend a few days and brought her two little girls. Some other relatives had come from Tarrytown.
The little girl greeted everybody, took off her Sunday white frock that had a needleworked edge that her mother had worn twenty years and more ago. Then she took the little girls out to see the chickens and hunt some eggs and have a good play on the hay in the barn.
"Oh, ain't you just crazy to go to New York to live?" cried Polly Odell. "The stores are so beautiful! When I go down I just don't want to come back!" ”

“ I flushed. "Not at all, Craig! This was not an attempt at murder. There were none of the criminal's earmarks noticeable at Tarrytown or in the banquet scene."
"How do you mean, Walter?" For once Kennedy regarded me seriously.
"Why, you pointed out yourself that this unknown was exceptionally clever. The attempt on Shirley, if it were an attempt, was not clever at all."
"Why?"
"Why?" I was a little sarcastic, because I was sure of myself. "Because the poison was atropin—belladonna. That is common. I've read of any number of crimes where that was used. ”

“ Was this the fancy of a drug-weakened brain?
Suddenly I realized that Werner was trying to speak. One of the camera men had helped Kennedy lift him to the top of a table, swept of its dishes and linen, so as to make it easier for him to breathe.
"Out in Tarrytown," he muttered, weakly, "that night—I suspected—and—saw—" His voice trailed off into nothingness. Even the motion of his lips was too feeble to follow.
In an instant I grasped the cruel injustice I had done this man in my mind. It was now that I remembered, in a flash, Kennedy's attitude and was glad that Kennedy had not suspected him. ”

“ The chief object of Tarleton was the capture of Lockwood. The Americans lost eighteen in wounded and missing, and twelve horses. On the thirtieth of August, a skirmish occurred near Tarrytown, between some of Sheldon's horse, under Captain Hopkins, and part of Emmerick's corps. The latter were led into an ambuscade, and suffered terribly. Twenty-three of his men were killed, and the remainder were dispersed. Hopkins, while pursuing Emmerick, was in turn surprised by riflemen, and was obliged to retreat toward Sing Sing, across Sleepy Hollow Creek. ”

“ The eastern front is overrun by ivy given Irving by Sir Walter Scott at 143 Abbotsford, and originally from Melrose Abbey. The great author lived here from 1846 until his death in 1859, and his pen has immortalized the neighborhood. Nearby is the sequestered vale of Slaeperigh Haven, famed in the "Legend of the Sleepy Hollow." Not far from Tarrytown, he writes, there is a little valley, or rather a lap of land among high hills, one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it with just murmur enough to lull one to repose ”

“ Said Gerald Trevor to George Tarlyon, whom he met wandering downwards:—
“George, I ask you to observe that women are odd: if you restrain yourself, they resent it: and if you don’t restrain yourself, you bore them. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Treat ’em rough, old man. And so to bed,” yawned George Tarlyon, handsome Tarlyon. Much will come of that young man, it was said. And much indeed was to come of that young man, in the fullness of war and peace. He will meet Ivor Marlay; and he will laugh at him. ”

“ Here, on the trail leading into Happy Camp, in the first sunshine of half a dozen days, Old Tarwater rested his pack against a huge boulder and caught his breath. Around this boulder the trail passed, laden men toiling slowly forward and men with empty pack-straps limping rapidly back for fresh loads. Twice Old Tarwater essayed to rise and go on, and each time, warned by his shakiness, sank back to recover more strength. From around the boulder he heard voices in greeting, recognized Charles Crayton’s voice, and realized that at last they had met up with Young Liverpool. ”

“ In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when there was a new purchase of sealskin, sick people were got to windows to see it go by. Trotters were out, in the winter afternoons, racing light sleighs on National Avenue and Tennessee Street; everybody recognized both the trotters and the drivers; and again knew them as well on summer evenings, when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time rivalry. ”

“ Tarlyon’s eyes were of a slightly frozen blue, a little mocking, very charming. He was an extraordinarily fair man: weathered brick-dust face generally smiling, just a little: an easy man to get on with, a very easy man. A remarkably amusing man, Tarlyon. It was said that he and Virginia were very good companions for each other. ”

“ You do not appreciate us. We have large landscapes in the heart of the city, and what other capital possesses advantages like that? Next winter the railway station is to have a new stove for the waiting-room. Heaven itself is one of our suburbs—it is so close that all one has to do is to die. You insist upon my being French, you see, and I know you are fond of nonsense. How did you happen to put 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' at the bottom of a page of Fisbee's notes?”
“Was it? How were you sure it was I?”
“In Carlow County!” ”

“ When Virginia was stronger Tarlyon called every day at any hour that happened, often when Ivor was there, and sat with her for a few minutes; or rather, he lounged about in his splendid way and made a few remarks about things in general. He pointed out, to Ivor and Virginia, that August was the month in which to stay in London. “It’s amusing,” he said, “because as every one thinks every one else has gone away, a good many every ones stay behind to amuse themselves in the wilderness. ”

“ But one couldn’t tell with Virginia: her men contradicted each other.... And then the figure of George Tarlyon came into his mind. He had barely spoken a direct word to Tarlyon since his coming—it hadn’t, he fancied, been expected of him. Tarlyon didn’t like him, it seemed. “There’s only one thing George hates in this world,” Virginia had said, “and that is to be disliked. It doesn’t happen often. But he feels you don’t like him, Ivor.” Well, that was a pity, because he had wanted to like him. He couldn’t help it. They always thought the worst, that kind of man ”

“ That in particular is why, Lord Tarlyon, I was so anxious to see you, and to put the matter before you. Is there, for a man of honour, no way out of a mess like this? Is it utterly impossible for me to shatter her illusions about her late—her extremely late, in his nightly habits—husband? Is there nothing I can do but look sulky every time the man’s name is mentioned? But I have tried that, and I am afraid she takes it as the expression of a sympathy too deep for words. What can I do, Lord Tarlyon? Or perhaps you, Mr. Trevor, can suggest some way out? ”

“ Tarwater pondered. “Very lucky to get such a bunch of specialities into one outfit.”
“More than luck,” Anson agreed. “It was all accident, too. Each of us started alone. We met on the steamer coming up from San Francisco, and formed the party.—Well, I got to be goin’. Charles is liable to get kicking because I ain’t packin’ my share’ just the same, you can’t expect a hundred-pound man to pack as much as a hundred-and-sixty-pounder.”
“Stick around and cook us something for dinner,” Charles, on his next load in and noting the effects of the old man’s handiness, told Tarwater. ”

“ Eskew, like Rome, was saved by a cackle, in which he joined, and a few moments later, as the bench loafers saw, was pulled down into his seat by the Colonel.
The voices of the fathers fell to the pitch of ordinary discourse; the drowsy town was quiet again; the whine of the planing-mill boring its way through the sizzling air to every wakening ear. Far away, on a quiet street, it sounded faintly, like the hum of a bee across a creek, and was drowned in the noise of men at work on the old Tabor house. ”

“ The cry cut across the sunlit place, the clear cry that has lit for England the darkest corners of the world, and the huge man in the red shirt stayed his cudgel and looked at us. But the little old woman still moaned, and it was quite dreadful to hear that in the summer silence. Ten yards separated us from that domestic scene, but they were yards of bright sunlight, and we could see every line on that patriarch’s face. For he was a patriarch. He was the most magnificent man I have ever seen; and Tarlyon and I, not small men, felt withered under his straight look. We stood rooted. ”

“ Besides, I’ve never been one for dinner-parties or the artless prattle of young ladies, and so, thought I, could a man spend his leave more profitably than in landing a snake like Julian Raphael?
I took myself off down to the East End with my oldest tweeds, a toothbrush and a growth on my chin. George Tarlyon came with me. He had scented a row that night, and not the devil himself can keep George from putting both his feet into the inside of a row. ”

“ I love it like I do my own business, and I'd fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family. It's a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district; look at any district you want to; look at the park system we're puttin' through, and the boulevards and the public statuary. And she grows. God! how she grows!” He had become intensely grave; he spoke with solemnity. “Now, Bibbs, I can't take any of it—nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor bonds—away with me in my shroud when I have to go. ”

“ Most everybody I knowed up in Dee-troit, they most always called me George fer a nickname like. You know anybody in Dee-troit?”
“No.”
“Married?” Tuttle inquired.
“No.”
“Never be’n?” he said.
“No.”
“Well, now, that’s too bad,” he said sympathetically. “It ain’t the right way to live. I’m a widower myself, and I ain’t never be’n the same man since I lost my first wife. She was an Irish lady from Chicago.” He sighed; finished the slice of lemon pie Tilly had given him, and drank what was left of his large cup of coffee, holding the protruding spoon between two fingers to keep it out of his eye. ”

“ But somehow I just can’t see ’m sayin’ no, because that’d mean too close up to freeze-up and too late for me to find another chance like this. And, as I’m sure going to get to Klondike, it’s just plumb impossible for him to say no.”
Old John Tarwater became a striking figure on a trail unusually replete with striking figures. With thousands of men, each back-tripping half a ton of outfit, retracing every mile of the trail twenty times, all came to know him and to hail him as “Father Christmas.” And, as he worked, ever he raised his chant with his age-falsetto voice. ”

“ There was a door connecting their rooms, but he came in by the ordinary door; for when they had entered into occupation of the villa the servants had somehow forgotten to unbolt the door between their master’s and mistress’s rooms, and no one had thought of doing it since. Lord Tarlyon was no slacker, and could do with as little sleep as any man; for no matter at what hour he went to bed, he was generally up and about by ten: as now, entering his wife’s bedroom, gently, as fresh and clear of eye as though Casino smoke was balm to his health. ”

“ While Tarleton was out on one of his raids, Macdonald, a young Scotchman, one of Marion's men, played a curious trick on an old Tory, who lived in the neighborhood. As soon as he heard that Colonel Tarleton had encamped, he dressed himself in the British uniform, and early in the morning called upon the Tory, and said to him:
3. "Colonel Tarleton sends his compliments, [84] and, knowing you to be a good friend of the king, begs you will send him one of your best horses for a charger, to help drive the rebels out of the country." ”

“ Tarlyon said something incredibly wicked and Ian Black said: “You’ll be all right soon. In fact you must be quite all right now, if you can swear like that. But don’t land me one on the head again with that hot-water bottle else I’ll operate on you for something else. And I haven’t left a sponge inside you, either. Hullo, here’s Hugo with a smile like a rainbow!”
“I should think so!” cried Hugo. “Chaps, I’ve got a son! What do you know about that?”
“Everything!” gasped Tarlyon. “He’s bald.”
“Bald be blowed, George! All babies are bald. ”