449. From these illustrations will be readily seen the grammatical changes made in transferring from direct to indirect discourse. Remember the following facts:—
(1) Usually the main, introductory verb is in the past tense.
(2) The indirect quotation is usually introduced by that, and the indirect question by whether or if, or regular interrogatives.
(3) Verbs in the present-tense form are changed to the past-tense form. This includes the auxiliaries be, have, will, etc. The past tense is sometimes changed to the past perfect.
(4) The pronouns of the first and second persons are all changed to the third person. Sometimes it is clearer to introduce the antecedent of the pronoun instead.
Other examples of indirect discourse have been given in Part I., under interrogative pronouns, interrogative adverbs, and the subjunctive mood of verbs.
Exercise.
Rewrite the following extract from Irving's "Sketch Book," and change it to a direct quotation:—
He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings; that it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name; that his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder.