Thanks to the Gutenberg Project for making this narrative avaiable. I formatted the font into this blog. A terrificll horrifing and creative Halloween short story.
The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an 1820 short story by American
author Washington
Irving (1783-1859), contained in his collection of 34 essays and short
stories
FOUND
AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.
A
pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of
dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of
gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
CASTLE
OF INDOLENCE.
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 soundthat 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 along 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 upthe 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 is 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 howoften 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 meltingand 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 offher 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 rowing 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 as 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
alwaysready 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
goesBrom 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 thepiazza, 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
anner, 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 beforehim 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 intow-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 andshort 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 nvitation
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 atleast 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 hen roost,
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 unskillful
rider an apparent advantage in the chase, but just as he had got half way
through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping
from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but
in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the
neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by
his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper’s wrath passed across
his mind,--for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears;
the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (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 todecay, 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, me thought, 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
Washington Irving is considered to be the father of the American short story.
Labels: Gutenberg Project, Washington Irving
