Day Sixteen

"The Story of Rip van Winkle"  - an episode of a series  for radio
by John Leslie Fitzmaurice Creighton, 
first broadcast in Sydney, 1935

An event of some considerable importance took place in a certain country home about the summer of 1912. There was born into a world of aristocratic parents some four or five blue-blooded long pedigreed Sealyham puppies.

The event took place in the ancestral stables and it was decreed by their pedigree that each male puppy’s name should begin with an R.  So arrived Rip van Winkle of Twyford, who we will now call Rip … and hurry along with the story.

The scene changes to a year later.  Rip has become the adored possession of a school boy, and as the months slipped by, these two became inseparable.  During school holidays, wherever the boy went, there, like a little white shadow flitting behind, went Rip.  No nose was so black and wet as Rip’s: no nose so quick to detect the presence of a rat or rabbit on their innumerable ferreting expeditions; no brain and body so alert; no eyes so brownly faithful as those of Rip van Winkle.

Three times a year when term time came round and the school boxes were dragged out, it was a dismal business for Rip, for he knew the time of parting was at hand … two or three weary months to wait before the next school holidays brought this lad his Master back again  from school, and opened the gate to more glorious adventures in the woods and fields. So until the very last minute, he would sit on the piled up boxes that always heralded this anguished parting, and if his chin dropped on his outstretched paws, and a wistful look came into those brown eyes, well it was but a reflection of his young Master’s feelings.

Came the War and still term time and holidays alternated in spasms of despair and exquisite joy, until one day at the end of 1917, his Master now grown to man of nearly 18, came home in most peculiar clothes.  Gone were the grey flannel trousers and worn sports coat, the pockets of which had always carried a varied assortment from bits of string to dead rabbits.  Gone was the homely smell of those clothes Rip knew and loved so well … in their place - polished field boots that squeaked a little and brightly shining buttons and a leather cap.  All this was bewildering, so Rip sniffed them with caution - decided they were absurd, but accepted them anyway, for after all it was his Master wearing them.

         

Came more preparations for departure.  Rip knew the signs only too well, so once more he hid amongst the luggage, hoping perhaps to be taken away with it, but this time his master picked him up and hugged hugged, kissed him on his black wet nose and gave him to the Missus of the house, saying “Look after the little chap, Mother, while I am away”

It was nice to be made a fuss of like that, if, Rip thought, a trifle undignified.  So his Master went away again  and as he disappeared down the long drive, Rip who was still in the arms of the Missus, looked up into her face and with a very pink, hot tongue kissed her on the cheek.  “funny” he thought “The kiss tasted salty”  The Missus of the house was crying, but that was only after his Master had gone.

Months dragged by - a year actually in a dog’s life and at length the great day came as it always had.  Rip knew all about it -  for had he heard them talking in the house and had they not said “Master is coming home””  He knew alright for he hadn’t lived near 7 years for nothing and 7 human years count as 50 in a dog’s life.

Yes, the day arrived, and he came home.  For Rip, the dignity of 50 years was forgotten; like a mad thing he tore round the house - upstairs, downstairs, through the servants quarters, round the halls, into all the rooms; out into the tennis court he went, round and round in circles and if he paused for a split second in his mad rush back to the house, he was only behaving in the manner of his kind and all of us most answer nature’s call.  Straight as an arrow he finally flung himself into his Master’s arms to lie there, shivering and crying with joy.  Such is the love of a dog.

The next time Master went away Rip went too and lived with him in quarters on a certain aerodrome in Norfolk.  Halcyon days were those … Rip had always liked motoring, but flying!  Here was something different. 

Whenever possible he would take to the air with his Master - sometimes in the big machine he would actually sit behind his master on someone else’s lap, and stick his head out over the side of the machine.  Yes those were his greatest days and nights too, with the wind dragging the hair back from his head and blowing his lips away from his teeth … he presented a spectacle enough to scare even the biggest and most ferocious nightmare rat.

Sometimes he was not allowed to fly.  On those occasions he would meet each machine as it taxied in, having watched it circle round the aerodrome.  If it did not contain his Master, then he would meet the next.  Rip became quite famous.  He became the Squadron mascot.; he undertook long flights on missions into enemy territory; he even recognized certain types of machines.  In fact he became quite air-minded, a pioneer in those early days of flight.

Finally, the war ended and the parting of the ways came again.  Once again Rip, now a fairly elderly gentleman, went back to the scene of his youth.  Somehow though he never settled down.  The Missus of the house couldn’t even comfort him.  He would sit out on the tennis court and listen for aeroplanes.  If one flew low over the garden, he would get excited and crane his neck for a first view before it disappeared behind the trees.

Would his Master never come home?  He wasn’t to know to know that his Master was far away in South Russia, fighting in the dark days of the Great Russian Revolution.  His little  cold black nose grew hot and dry, his soft brown eyes grew dim with age … but still he could hear aeroplanes and dream aeroplanes.  Why wouldn’t his Master come home before it was too late?

When the pink May trees at the end of the garden was bursting into bud and the lilac was in bloom down by the stables where Rip was born, and the air was full of the smell of spring, this schoolboy , grown prematurely experienced to a  man of 22 came home and he said to the Missus of the house “Where Mother is Rip? Rip van Winkle?”

“Come” she said “I will show you”.  Taking his arm she led him up the path beside the tennis court where Rip had watched for aeroplanes, to the pink May tree and beneath that tree was a stone slab on which was written in black letters …

RIP

Here lies Rip van Winkle who died of a lonely heart.

Now flies alone in Shadowland, himself a shadow, chasing shadows.

“I understand”, said the Missus of the house .. “I’ll leave you two alone.  Tea is to be served in half  an hour”  ‘