Washington
Irving (1783–1859). Rip
Van Winkle & The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. |
The Harvard
Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917. |
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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
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1 |
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IN the
bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the
Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch
navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail,
and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a
small market-town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but
which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This
name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the
adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger
about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch
for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and
authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a
little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the
quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with
just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a
quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks
in upon the uniform tranquillity. |
2 |
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I recollect that, when a stripling, my first
exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades
one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time, when all nature
is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke
the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry
echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the
world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled
life, I know of none more promising than this little valley. |
3 |
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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 pow-wows
there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it
is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that
holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a
continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are
subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear
music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales,
haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare
oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the
nightmare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of
her gambols. |
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The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this
enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the
air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by
some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away
by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war; and
who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of
night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the
valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the
vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most
authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and
collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of
the trooper, having been buried in the church-yard, the ghost rides forth to
the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the rushing speed
with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is
owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the church-yard
before daybreak. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a
remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a
worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed
it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children
of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut; a State which supplies the
Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth
yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters. The
cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but
exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that
dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels,
and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat
at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so
that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell
which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a
windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have
mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some
scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. |
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His school-house was a low building of one
large room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly
patched with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at
vacant hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set
against the window shutters; so that, though a thief might get in with
perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out; an idea most
probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houton, from the mystery of an
eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation
just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a
formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of
his pupils’ voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy
summer’s day, like the hum of a bee-hive; 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. |
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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 burthen 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.” |
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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. |
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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. |
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In addition to his other vocations, he was the
singing-master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by
instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity
to him, on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with
a band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away
the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all
the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be
heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the
opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to
be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers
little make-shifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated “by
hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was
thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a
wonderfully easy life of it. |
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The schoolmaster is generally a man of some
importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a
kind of idle gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and
accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in
learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion
some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a
supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a
silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the
smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the
churchyard, between services on Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the
wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement
all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them,
along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country
bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. |
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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. |
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He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small
shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his
powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been
increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross
or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his
school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of
clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and
there con over old Mather’s direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the
evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended
his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he
happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour,
fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will 1 from the hill-side;
the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting
of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened
from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the
darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness
would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle
came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to
give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His
only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or drive away evil
spirits, was to sing psalm tunes;—and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as
they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing
his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,” floating from the
distant hill, or along the dusky road. |
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Another of his sources of fearful pleasure
was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat
spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the
hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and
haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses,
and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the
Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his
anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and
sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would
frighten them wofully 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! |
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But if there was a pleasure in all this, while
snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy
glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to
show his face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk
homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and
ghastly glare of a snowy night!—With what wistful look did he eye every
trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant
window!—How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which,
like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path!—How often did he shrink with
curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his
feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth
being tramping close behind him!—and how often was he thrown into complete
dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it
was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings! |
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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. |
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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. |
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Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart
towards the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel
soon found favor in his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her
paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving,
contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his
eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those
every thing was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his
wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance,
rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the
banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which
the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its broad
branches over it; at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and
sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel; and then stole
sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along
among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the 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; 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. |
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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. |
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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
burthened 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. |
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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; and irons, 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. |
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From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon
these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only
study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel.
In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally
fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had any thing but
giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily-conquered
adversaries, to contend with; and had to make his way merely through gates of
iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle keep, where the lady of his
heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his
way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as
a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart
of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which
were for ever presenting new difficulties and impediments; and he had to
encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous
rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart; keeping a watchful and
angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against
any new competitor. |
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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. |
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He was foremost at all races and cock-fights;
and, with the ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was
the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his
decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was
always ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than
ill-will in his composition; and, with all his overbearing roughness, there
was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or four boon
companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he
scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles
round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a
flaunting fox’s tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this
well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders,
they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing
along past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of
Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen
for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “Ay,
there goes Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a
mixture of awe, admiration, and good will; and when any madcap prank, or
rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and
warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. |
28 |
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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. |
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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. |
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To have taken the field openly against his
rival would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his
amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made
his advances in a quiet and gently-insinuating manner. Under cover of his
character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not
that he had any thing to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of
parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van
Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his
pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her
way in every thing. 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. |
31 |
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I profess not to know how women’s hearts are
wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others
have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It
is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of
generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man must battle for
his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts
is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over
the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the
case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made
his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined; his horse was
no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud
gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. |
32 |
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Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in
his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled
their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise
and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore—by single combat; but
Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the
lists against him: he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would “double
the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house;” and he
was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely
provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but
to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off
boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of
whimsical persecution to Bones, and his gang of rough riders. They harried
his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by stopping up
the chimney; broke into the school-house at night, in spite of its formidable
fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned every thing topsy-turvy: so
that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held
their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all
opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and
had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and
introduced as a rival of Ichabod’s to instruct her in psalmody. |
33 |
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In this way matters went on for some time,
without producing any material effect on the relative situation of the
contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood,
sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns
of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a 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 school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the
appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned
fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a
ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of
halter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to
Ichabod to attend a merry-making or “quilting frolic,” to be held that
evening at Mynheer Van Tassel’s; and having delivered his message with that
air of importance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to
display on petty embassies of that kind, he dashed over the brook, and was
seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his
mission. |
34 |
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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. |
35 |
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The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an
extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and
indeed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of broken
looking-glass, that hung up in the 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
plough-horse, that had outlived almost every thing but his viciousness. He
was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty
mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its
pupil, and was glaring and spectral; but the other had the gleam of a genuine
devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may
judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite
steed of his master’s, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and
had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old
and broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than
in any young filly in the country. |
36 |
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Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a
steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the
pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers’; he
carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and, as his
horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair
of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty
strip of forehead might be called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered
out almost to the horse’s tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his
steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was
altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. |
37 |
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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. |
38 |
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The small birds were taking their farewell
banquets. In the fulness 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 under-clothes; screaming and
chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good
terms with every songster of the grove. |
39 |
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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. |
40 |
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Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts
and “sugared suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills
which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The
sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of
the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a
gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant
mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to
move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a
pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A
slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung
some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark-gray and purple of
their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly
down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the
reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the
vessel was suspended in the air. |
41 |
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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, home-spun 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. |
42 |
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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. |
43 |
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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 dough-nut, the
tenderer 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-piggledly, pretty
much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea-pot sending up its
clouds of vapor from the midst—Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time
to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my
story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian,
but did ample justice to every dainty. |
44 |
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He was a kind and thankful creature, whose
heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer; and whose
spirits rose with eating as some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too,
rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the
possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost
unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he’d turn his
back upon the old school-house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van
Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue
out of doors that should dare to call him comrade! |
45 |
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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.” |
46 |
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And now the sound of the music from the common
room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old grayheaded
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. |
47 |
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Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as
much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle;
and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about
the room, you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of
the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all
the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and
the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every
door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white
eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the
flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? the lady of his
heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all
his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy,
sat brooding by himself in one corner. |
48 |
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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. |
49 |
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This neighborhood, at the time of which I am
speaking, was one of those highly-favored places which abound with chronicle
and great men. The British and American line had run near it during the war;
it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees,
cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed
to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming
fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the
hero of every exploit. |
50 |
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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. |
51 |
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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 populations 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. |
52 |
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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 wailing 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 church-yard. |
53 |
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The sequestered situation of this church seems
always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a
knoll, surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent
whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through
the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet
of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the
blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the
sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the
dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody
dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen
trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was
formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge
itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about
it, even in the daytime; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. This was
one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman; and the place where he
was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical
disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning from his foray into
Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over
bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the
horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook,
and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. |
54 |
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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 Dare-devil 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. |
55 |
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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. |
56 |
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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 chop-fallen.—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. |
57 |
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It was the very witching time of night that
Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along
the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had
traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was dismal as himself. Far
below him, the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters,
with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under
the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the
watch dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint
as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man.
Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened,
would sound far, far off from some 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 bull-frog, from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and
turning suddenly in his bed. |
58 |
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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. |
59 |
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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. |
60 |
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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. |
61 |
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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 grapevines,
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. |
62 |
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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, black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up
in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller. |
63 |
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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. |
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Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange
midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with
the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him
behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod
pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind—the other did the
same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm
tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not
utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this
pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon
fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the
figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height,
and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was
headless!—but his horror was still more increased, on observing that the
head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on
the pommel of the saddle; his terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower
of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder; hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his
companion the slip—but the spectre started full jump with him. Away then they
dashed, through thick and thin; stones flying, and sparks flashing at every
bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his
long lanky body away over his horse’s head, in the eagerness of his flight. |
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They had now reached the road which turns off
to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead
of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to
the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a
quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and
just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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
school-master. 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. |
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The brook was searched, but the body of the
school-master was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his
estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They
consisted of two shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of
worsted stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a
book of psalm tunes, full of dogs’ ears; and a broken pitchpipe. As to the
books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged to the community,
excepting Cotton Mather’s History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a
book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap
much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of
verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the
poetic scrawls 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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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The old country wives, however, who are the
best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited
away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the
neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever
an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has
been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the
mill-pond. The school-house being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was
reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the
ploughboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied
his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil
solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. |
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