I
n the bosom of one of those spacious c
oves 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 noontime, 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 ninefold, 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 churchyard, 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
churchyard 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
woodmen 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 schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of
logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old
copybooks. 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 eelpot. The schoolhouse 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 in 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 millpond, on a still
Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of
Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, 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 teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was
peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure
among them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for
them from the wild vines that overran 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 millpond; 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 spell-bound
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 schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the
gathering dusk of 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 fireflies, 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.
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 its 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 everything 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 babbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by
the farmhouse 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, from 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 farmyard,
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 mantelpiece; 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 anything 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 forever 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 always 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 that admitted 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 anything 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 mean time, 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 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 to 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 schoolhouse;" 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 schoolhouse at night, in spite
of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything
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 situations of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal
afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from
whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his
hand he swayed a ferule, 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 schoolroom. 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 schoolroom. 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 locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the
schoolhouse. 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 plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but its 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 burs; 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 horses 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 store 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 beehive, 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 in 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 Heer 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 short gowns,
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 purpos
e, 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
teapot 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 schoolhouse; 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 St. 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 eyeballs, 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, cowboys, and all kinds of border
chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each storyteller 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 White Plains, 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 André 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 churchyard.
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. Such 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 tête-à-tête 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
crestfallen, pursued his travels 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 watchdog 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
farmhouse 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 André, who had been taken
prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major André'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 André 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 plashy 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 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 his 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 downhill 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 unskilful 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 (unskilful 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 schoolhouse, 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 dog's-ears; and a
broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, 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 churchyard, 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 millpond. The schoolhouse being
deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the
unfortunate pedagogue and the plowboy, 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 at 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 humourous 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 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.