Legend of Sleepy Hollow E-book

                                    1819-20
                                THE SKETCH BOOK

                          THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
            FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER

                              by Washington Irving






Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                     THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
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           A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
             Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
           And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
             For ever flushing round a summer sky.
                                            Castle of Indolence.
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  IN THE bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern
shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated
by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always
prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas
when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port, which
by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and
properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are
told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country,
from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the
village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for
the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and
authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there
is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is
one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides
through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the
occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost
the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.
  I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in
squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one
side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time, when all
nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own
gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and
reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat,
whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream
quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more
promising than this little valley.
  From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of
its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers,
this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY
HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys
throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence
seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some
say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the
early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the
prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the
country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the
place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that
holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk
in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous
beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see
strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole
neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight
superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley
than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her
whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.
                                                              
  The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and
seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the
apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some
to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away
by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary
war; and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along
in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are
not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads,
and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance.
Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who
have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts
concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper, having
been buried in the church-yard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of
battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the rushing speed with
which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is
owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the
church-yard before daybreak.
  Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which
has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of
shadows; and the spectre is known, at all the country firesides, by
the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
  It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is
not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is
unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time.
However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy
region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching
influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative- to dream dreams,
and see apparitions.
  I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in
such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in
the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs,
remain fixed; while the great torrent of migration and improvement,
which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless
country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks
of still water which border a rapid stream; where we may see the straw
and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their
mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though
many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy
Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees
and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
  In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of
American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy
wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed
it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the
children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut; a State
which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the
forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and
country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to
his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders,
long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet
that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely
hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears,
large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like
a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the
wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy
day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have
mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or
some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
                                                             
  His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely
constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched
with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at
vacant hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes
set against the window shutters; so that, though a thief might get in
with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out; an
idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from
the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely
but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook
running close by, and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of
it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over
their lessons, might be heard of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum
of a beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of
the master, in the tone of menace or command; or, peradventure, by the
appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along
the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious
man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil
the child."- Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.
  I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those
cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their
subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination
rather than severity; taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and
laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that
winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with
indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a
double portion on some little, tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted
Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen
beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his duty by their
parents;" and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it
by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he
would remember it, and thank him for it the longest day he had to
live."
  When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate
of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the
smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good
housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed
it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue
arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely
sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder,
and though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help
out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those
parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers, whose children
he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time; thus
going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects
tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
  That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic
patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous
burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers
occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms; helped to make hay;
mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from
pasture; and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the
dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his
little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and
ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting
the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which
whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child
on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.
  In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the
neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the
young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him,
on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a
band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried
away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far
above all the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers
still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a
mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still
Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the
nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little make-shifts in that
ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook,"
the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all
who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully
easy life of it.
                                                             
  The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female
circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle
gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments
to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to
the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little
stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a
supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the
parade of a silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was
peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he
would figure among them in the church-yard, between services on
Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun
the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs
on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the
banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country
bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and
address.
  From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to
house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He
was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for
he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of
Cotton Mather's history of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the
way, he most firmly and potently believed.
  He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple
credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of
digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased
by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or
monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after
his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the
rich bed of clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his
school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the
gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before
his eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful
woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every
sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited
imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will * from the hillside; the
boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary
hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of
birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled
most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one
of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by
chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering
flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost,
with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only
resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or drive away
evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes;- and the good people of Sleepy
Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled
with awe, at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn
out," floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.
-
  * The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. It
receives its name from its note, which is thought to resemble those
words.
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  Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter
evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire,
with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and
listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted
fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses,
and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the
Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by
his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous
sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of
Connecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon
comets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact that the world
did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time
topsy-turvy!
                                                             
  But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in
the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the
crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show
his face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent
walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst
the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night!- With what wistful look
did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste
fields from some distant window!- How often was he appalled by some
shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very
path!- How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his
own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over
his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close
behind him!- and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some
rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the
Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings!
  All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the
mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in
his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in
his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils;
and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the
devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being
that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and
the whole race of witches put together, and that was- a woman.
  Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week,
to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the
daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a
blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and
melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and
universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast
expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be
perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments
of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had brought
over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time; and
withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot
and ankle in the country round.
  Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it
is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor
in his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her paternal
mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving,
contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either
his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but
within those every thing was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was
satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself
upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived.
His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of
those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are
so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its broad branches over
it; at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and
sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel; and then stole
sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled
along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farm-house was a
vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and
crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm;
the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night;
swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of
pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some
with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and
others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were
enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were
grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens; whence sallied
forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A
stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond,
convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling
through the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like
ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish discontented cry. Before
the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a
warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and
crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart- sometimes tearing up
the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry
family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had
discovered.
  The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous
promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye, he
pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in
his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to
bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the
geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily
in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of
onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of
bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily
trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a
necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay
sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if
craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask
while living.
                                                             
  As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his
great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat,
of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with
ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his
heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and
his imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily
turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild
land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy
already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina,
with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded
with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and
he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels,
setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.
  When he entered the house the conquest of his heart was complete. It
was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged, but
lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first
Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the
front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung
flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing
in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for
summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the
other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be
devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall,
which formed the centre of the mansion and the place of usual
residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser,
dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be
spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears
of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay
festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a
door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the
claw-footed chairs, and dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors;
andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from
their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells
decorated the mantel-piece; strings of various colored birds' eggs
were suspended above it: a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre
of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed
immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.
  From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight,
the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to
gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this
enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell
to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had any thing but
giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily-conquered
adversaries, to contend with; and had to make his way merely through
gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle keep,
where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as
easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie;
and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on
the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette,
beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were for ever
presenting new difficulties and impediments; and he had to encounter a
host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous
rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart; keeping a
watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the
common cause against any new competitor.
  Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering
blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch
abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which
rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered
and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff, but not
unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance.
From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the
nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known. He was
famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as
dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and
cock-fights; and, with the ascendancy which bodily strength acquires
in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one
side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no
gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic;
but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and, with all
his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good
humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded
him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country,
attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold
weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting
fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this
well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard
riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be
heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and
halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out
of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had
clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his
gang!" The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe,
admiration, and good will; and when any madcap prank, or rustic brawl,
occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom
Bones was at the bottom of it.
  This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming
Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his
amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and
endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not
altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were
signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to
cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen
tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his
master was courting, or, as it is termed, "sparking," within, all
other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other
quarters.
                                                             
  Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to
contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have
shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He
had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his
nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack- yielding, but
tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the
slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away- jerk! he was as
erect, and carried his head as high as ever.
  To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been
madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more
than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his
advances in a quiet and gently-insinuating manner. Under cover of his
character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse;
not that he had any thing to apprehend from the meddlesome
interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the
path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved
his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and
an excellent father, let her have her way in everything. His notable
little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and
manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are
foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of
themselves. Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied
her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit
smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a
little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most
valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the
meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the
side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the
twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.
  I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me
they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to
have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have
a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways.
It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater
proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man
must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a
thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he
who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a
hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom
Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the
interests of the former evidently declined; his horse was no longer
seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually
arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.
  Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain
have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their
pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise
and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore- by single combat;
but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary
to enter the lists against him: he had overheard a boast of Bones,
that he would "double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of
his own school-house;" and he was too wary to give him an opportunity.
There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific
system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of
rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical
jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical
persecution to Bones, and his gang of rough riders. They harried his
hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by stopping
up the chimney; broke into the school-house at night, in spite of its
formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned every
thing topsy-turvy: so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all
the witches in the country held their meetings there. But what was
still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into
ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he
taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a
rival of Ichabod's to instruct her in psalmody.
  In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any
material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers. On
a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on
the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his
little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferrule, that sceptre
of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind
the throne, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before
him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons,
detected upon the persons of idle urchins; such as half-munched
apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant
little paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act
of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent
upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept
upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout
the school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a
negro, in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a
hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged,
wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter.
He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod
to attend a merry-making or "quilting frolic," to be held that evening
at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and having delivered his message with that
air of importance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt
to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook,
and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and
hurry of his mission.
                                                             
  All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room. The
scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at
trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and
those who were tardy, had a smart application now and then in the
rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books
were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were
overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose
an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young
imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their early
emancipation.
  The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his
toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of
rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of broken looking-glass,
that hung up in the school-house. That he might make his appearance
before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a
horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old
Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted,
issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is
meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account
of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he
bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse, that had outlived almost
every thing but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe
neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled
and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring
and spectral; but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it.
Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge
from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite
steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious
rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the
animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there was more of the
lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country.
  Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short
stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the
saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his
whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and, as his horse
jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a
pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so
his scanty strip of forehead might be called; and the skirts of his
black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the
appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate
of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is
seldom to be met with in broad daylight.
  It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky was clear and
serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always
associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their
sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been
nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and
scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance
high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the
groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail
at intervals from the neighboring stubble-field.
  The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness
of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush
to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and
variety around them. There was the honest cock-robin, the favorite
game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the
twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged
woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and
splendid plumage; and the cedar bird, with its red-tipt wings and
yellow-tipt tail, and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the
blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light-blue coat and white
underclothes; screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and
bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the
grove.
                                                             
  As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every
symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures
of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast stores of apples; some
hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into
baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for
the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn,
with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out
the promise of cakes and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying
beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and
giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he
passed the fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the
bee-hive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his
mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or
treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.
  Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and "sugared
suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which
look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The
sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide
bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here
and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of
the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a
breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint,
changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the
deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody
crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving
greater depth to the dark-gray and purple of their rocky sides. A
sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the
tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the
reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if
the vessel was suspended in the air.
  It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Herr
Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the
adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in
homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and
magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk withered little dames, in
close crimped caps, long-waisted shortgowns, homespun petticoats, with
scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the
outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers,
excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock,
gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square-skirted
coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally
queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure
an eel-skin for the purpose, it being esteemed, throughout the
country, as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.
  Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the
gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself,
full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could
manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given
to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in constant risk of his
neck, for he held a tractable well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad
of spirit.
  Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon
the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van
Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their
luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine
Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such
heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds,
known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty
doughnut, the tender oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller;
sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the
whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies and peach pies
and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover
delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and
quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together
with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty
much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea-pot sending up
its clouds of vapor from the midst- Heaven bless the mark! I want
breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too
eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so
great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.
                                                             
  He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in
proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer; and whose spirits
rose with eating as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too,
rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the
possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost
unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn
his back upon the old school-house; snap his fingers in the face of
Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any
itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade!
  Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face
dilated with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest
moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being
confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh,
and a pressing invitation to "fall to, and help themselves."
  And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall,
summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who
had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than
half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The
greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings,
accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head;
bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a
fresh couple were to start.
  Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal
powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen
his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room,
you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the
dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all
the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the
farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black
faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene,
rolling their white eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from
ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than
animated and joyous? the lady of his heart was his partner in the
dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings;
while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding
by himself in one corner.
  When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the
sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the
piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories
about the war.
                                                             
  This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of
those highly-favored places which abound with chronicle and great men.
The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had,
therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees,
cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had
elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little
becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to
make himself the hero of every exploit.
  There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded
Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron
nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the
sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless,
being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle
of Whiteplains, being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket
ball with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz
round the blade, and glance off at the hilt: in proof of which, he was
ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent.
There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not
one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in
bringing the war to a happy termination.
  But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions
that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the
kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered
long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting
throng that forms the population of most of our country places.
Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages,
for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn
themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have
travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at
night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call
upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts
except in our long-established Dutch communities.
  The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural
stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy
Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that
haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies
infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were
present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and
wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains,
and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree
where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the
neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that
haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on
winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The
chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre
of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several
times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his
horse nightly among the graves in the church-yard.
  The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made
it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll,
surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent
whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming
through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a
silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps
may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its
grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one
would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one
side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a
large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep
black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown
a wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were
thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even
in the daytime; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. This was
one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman; and the place
where he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old
Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the
horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged
to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill
and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the horseman suddenly
turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang
away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder.
                                                             
  This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure
of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping Hessian as an arrant
jockey. He affirmed that, on returning one night from the neighboring
village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper;
that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should
have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but,
just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and
vanished in a flash of fire.
  All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk
in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then
receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the
mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his
invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvellous events
that had taken place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful
sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.
  The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together
their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling
along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the
damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their
light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed
along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they
gradually died away- and the late scene of noise and frolic was all
silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the
custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress,
fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What
passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do
not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he
certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air
quite desolate and chapfallen.- Oh these women! these women! Could
that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks?- Was her
encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her
conquest of his rival?- Heaven only knows, not I!- Let it suffice to
say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a
henroost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the
right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so
often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty
cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the
comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of
mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.
  It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted
and crest-fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along the sides of the
lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so
cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far
below him, the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of
waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly
at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even
hear the barking of the watch dog from the opposite shore of the
Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his
distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the
long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far,
far off, from some farm-house away among the hills- but it was like a
dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but
occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the
guttural twang of a bullfrog, from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping
uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed.
  All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the
afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew
darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and
driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt
so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place
where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the
centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like
a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a
kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled, and fantastic, large enough
to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth,
and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical
story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by;
and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The
common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition,
partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and
partly from the tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told
concerning it.
                                                             
  As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle: he
thought his whistle was answered- it was but a blast sweeping sharply
through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought
he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree- he paused
and ceased whistling; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it
was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the
white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan- his teeth chattered
and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one
huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He
passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.
  About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the
road, and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name
of Wiley's swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a
bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook
entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with
wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge
was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the
unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those
chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised
him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful
are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.
  As he approached the stream his heart began to thump; he summoned
up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks
in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but
instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral
movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears
increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and
kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed
started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of
the road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster
now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old
Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a
stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly sent his
rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a splashy tramp by
the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the
dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld
something huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but
seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to
spring upon the traveller.
  The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror.
What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides,
what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was,
which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore,
a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents- "Who are you?"
He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated
voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of
the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with
involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of
alarm put itself in motion, and, with a scramble and a bound, stood at
once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal,
yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained.
He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a
black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or
sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on
the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and
waywardness.
  Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and
bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping
Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The
stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod
pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind- the other did
the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume
his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth,
and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and
dogged silence of this pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and
appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising
ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief
against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod
was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was headless!- but his horror
was still more increased, on observing that the head, which should
have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of
the saddle: his terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of
kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement, to give
his companion the slip- but the spectre started full jump with him.
Away then they dashed, through thick and thin; stones flying, and
sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in
the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's
head, in the eagerness of his flight.
                                                             
  They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but
Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up
it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to the left.
This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a
quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story,
and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed
church.
  As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an
apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got half way
through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it
slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to
hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save himself by
clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the
earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a
moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind-
for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears;
the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskillful rider that he
was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one
side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of
his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would
cleave him asunder.
  An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the
church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in
the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the
walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He
recollected the place where Brom Bones's ghostly competitor had
disappeared. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am
safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close
behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another
convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge;
he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side;
and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should
vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then
he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of
hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible
missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous
crash- he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black
steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind.
  The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and
with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his
master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast-
dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the
school-house and strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no
schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about
the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot,
and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one
part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled
in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road,
and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond
which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran
deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and
close beside it a shattered pumpkin.
  The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to
be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined
the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of
two shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of
worsted stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty
razor; a book of psalm tunes, full of dogs' ears; and a broken
pitchpipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house, they
belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of
Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and
fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled
and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in
honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic
scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who
from that time forward determined to send his children no more to
school; observing, that he never knew any good come of this same
reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he
had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have
had about his person at the time of his disappearance.
                                                             
  The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the
following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the
church-yard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin
had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget
of others, were called to mind; and when they had diligently
considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the
present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that
Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a
bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more
about him. The school was removed to a different quarter of the
hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.
  It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit
several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly
adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod
Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly
through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in
mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that
he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept
school and studied law at the same time, had been admitted to the bar,
turned politician, electioneered, written for the newspapers, and
finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones
too, who shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted the
blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look
exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and
always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which
led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose
to tell.
  The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these
matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by
supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the
neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more
than ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason
why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the
church by the border of the mill-pond. The school-house being
deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the
ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the ploughboy, loitering
homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a
distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil
solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.


       Postscript Found in the Handwriting of Mr. Knickerbocker
-
  THE preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in which I
heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient city of
Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most
illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly
old fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face;
and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor,- he made such efforts
to be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was much
laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy
aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was,
however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows,
who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout: now and then
folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor,
as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men,
who never laugh, but upon good grounds- when they have reason and the
law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had
subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of
his chair, and, sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but
exceedingly sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what
was the moral of the story, and what it went to prove.
  The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips,
as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his
inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass
slowly to the table, observed, that the story was intended most
logically to prove:-
  "That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and
pleasures- provided we will but take a joke as we find it:
  "That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely
to have rough riding of it.
  "Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch
heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the state."
                                                   
  The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this
explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the
syllogism; while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with
something of a triumphant leer. At length, he observed, that all this
was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the
extravagant- there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.
  "Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I don't
believe one-half of it myself."
                                                            D.K.
-
-
                               THE END