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The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane.
oil, 26 7/8 x 33 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum. |
Below is the original folklore
and is in the public domain. Teachers may copy, paste, and print this
version out for their classrooms, however they wish to use it.
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 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 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 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.
