The Legend of Sleepy Hollow



by Washington Irving









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 sound

that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.



I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in

squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one

side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature

is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it

broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated

by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might

steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the

remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this

little valley.



From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its

inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this

sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and

its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the

neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the

land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place

was bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the

settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of

his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by

Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under

the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of

the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are

given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and

visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in

the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots,

and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across

the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare,

with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her

gambols.



The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and

seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the

apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some

to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away

by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War,

and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in

the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not

confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and

especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed,

certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been

careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this

spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the

churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly

quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes

passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being

belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.



Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has

furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and

the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the

Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.



It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not

confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously

imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake

they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are

sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and

begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.



I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such

little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the

great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain

fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is

making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country,

sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still

water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and

bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic

harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many

years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet

I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same

families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.



In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American

history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the

name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,”

 in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the

vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the

Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends

forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters.

The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall,

but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands

that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for

shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was

small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a

long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his

spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along

the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and

fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of

famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a

cornfield.



His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed

of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of

old copybooks. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a

withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the

window shutters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease,

he would find some embarrassment in getting out,--an idea most probably

borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an

eelpot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,

just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and

a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low

murmur of his pupils’ voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard

in a drowsy summer’s day, like the hum of a beehive; interrupted now and

then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or

command, or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he

urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to

say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim,

“Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Ichabod Crane’s scholars certainly

were not spoiled.



I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel

potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on

the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than

severity; taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on

those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least

flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of

justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little

tough wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled

and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing

his duty by their parents;” and he never inflicted a chastisement

without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting

urchin, that “he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day

he had to live.”



When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate

of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of

the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good

housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed,

it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue

arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely

sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder,

and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help

out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those

parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children

he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus

going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied

up in a cotton handkerchief.



That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic

patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous

burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of

rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers

occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make

hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from

pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the

dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little

empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating.

He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children,

particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so

magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee,

and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.



In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the

neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the

young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on

Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band

of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away

the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above

all the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still

to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off,

quite to the opposite side of the millpond, on a still Sunday morning,

which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod

Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is

commonly denominated “by hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on

tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the

labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.



The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female

circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle,

gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to

the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the

parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir

at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary

dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver

teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the

smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the

churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them from

the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees; reciting for their

amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a

whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent millpond; while the

more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior

elegance and address.



From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette,

carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that

his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover,

esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read

several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather’s

“History of New England Witchcraft,” in which, by the way, he most

firmly and potently believed.



He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple

credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting

it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his

residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous

for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school

was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of

clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and

there con over old Mather’s direful tales, until the gathering dusk of

evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he

wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse

where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that

witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,--the moan of the

whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that

harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the

sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The

fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now

and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across

his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging

his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up

the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His

only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away

evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes and the good people of Sleepy

Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with

awe at hearing his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,”

 floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.



Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter

evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire,

with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and

listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted

fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses,

and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the

Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by

his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous

sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of

Connecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon

comets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact that the world did

absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!



But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in

the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the

crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show

its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk

homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the

dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he

eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from

some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered

with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often

did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the

frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest

he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And how

often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling

among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of

his nightly scourings!



All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind

that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time,

and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely

perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would

have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his

works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more

perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of

witches put together, and that was--a woman.



Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week,

to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel,

the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a

blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting

and rosy-cheeked as one of her father’s peaches, and universally famed,

not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a

little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was

a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off

her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her

great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting

stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat,

to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.



Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it is

not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his

eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion.

Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented,

liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or

his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those

everything was snug, happy and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with

his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty

abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was

situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered,

fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A

great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which

bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well

formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to

a neighboring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows.

Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a

church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the

treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from

morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the

eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching

the weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their

bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames,

were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were

grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied

forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air.

A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond,

convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling

through the farmyard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it, like

ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before

the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a

warrior and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing

in the pride and gladness of his heart,--sometimes tearing up the earth

with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of

wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.



The pedagogue’s mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise

of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to

himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly,

and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a

comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were

swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes,

like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In

the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy

relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with

its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory

sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back,

in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which

his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.



As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great

green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye,

of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy

fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart

yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his

imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned

into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and

shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized

his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole

family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household

trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself

bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for

Kentucky, Tennessee,--or the Lord knows where!



When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It

was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged but lowly sloping

roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the

low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being

closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various

utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring

river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great

spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various

uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza

the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the

mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent

pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner

stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a quantity of

linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of

dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled

with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into

the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables

shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and

tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and

conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds

eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from

the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open,

displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.



From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the

peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the

affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise,

however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of

a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters,

fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend

with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass,

and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was

confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way

to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as

a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to

the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims

and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and

impediments; and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of

real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every

portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other,

but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.



Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade,

of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom

Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of

strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed,

with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance,

having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame

and great powers of limb he had received the nickname of BROM BONES,

by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and

skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar.

He was foremost at all races and cock fights; and, with the ascendancy

which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in

all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with

an air and tone that admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always

ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than

ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness,

there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or

four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the

head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or

merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a

fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox’s tail; and when the folks at a

country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking

about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.

Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at

midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the

old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till

the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “Ay, there goes

Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture

of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic

brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted

Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.



This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina

for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous

toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a

bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his

hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to

retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch,

that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel’s paling, on a Sunday

night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed,

“sparking,” within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried

the war into other quarters.



Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend,

and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk

from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had,

however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature;

he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack--yielding, but tough;

though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the

slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away--jerk!--he was as erect,

and carried his head as high as ever.



To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been

madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more

than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances

in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character

of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he

had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents,

which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van

Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even

than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let

her have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough

to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she

sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked

after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame

bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the

piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other,

watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a

sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle

of the barn. In the mean time, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the

daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering

along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover’s eloquence.



I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they

have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but

one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand

avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a

great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of

generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for man must battle

for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common

hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed

sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this

was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment

Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently

declined: his horse was no longer seen tied to the palings on Sunday

nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor

of Sleepy Hollow.



Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have

carried matters to open warfare and have settled their pretensions

to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple

reasoners, the knights-errant of yore,--by single combat; but Ichabod

was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the

lists against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would

“double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own

schoolhouse;” and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was

something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it

left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in

his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival.

Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang

of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked

out his singing school by stopping up the chimney; broke into the

schoolhouse at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe

and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor

schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held

their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all

opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress,

and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous

manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod’s, to instruct her in

psalmody.



In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any

material effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On

a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on

the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his

little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of

despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the

throne, a constant terror to evil doers, while on the desk before

him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons,

detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples,

popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little

paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice

recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their

books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the

master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the

schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in

tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat,

like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild,

half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came

clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend

a merry-making or “quilting frolic,” to be held that evening at

Mynheer Van Tassel’s; and having delivered his message with that air of

importance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display

on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen

scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his

mission.



All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars

were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles; those

who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were

tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their

speed or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without

being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown

down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual

time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing

about the green in joy at their early emancipation.



The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet,

brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty

black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that

hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his

mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the

farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the

name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like

a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in

the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks

and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was

a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but its

viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, and a head like

a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burs;

one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other

had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and

mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder.

He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master’s, the choleric Van

Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of

his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked,

there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in

the country.



Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short

stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle;

his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers’; he carried his whip

perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and as his horse jogged on,

the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A

small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of

forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out

almost to the horses tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his

steed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was

altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad

daylight.



It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and

serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always

associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober

brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped

by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.

Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the

air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech

and hickory-nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from

the neighboring stubble field.



The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness

of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking from bush to

bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety

around them. There was the honest cock robin, the favorite game of

stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering

blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker with

his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the

cedar bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little

monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his

gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering,

nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with

every songster of the grove.



As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom

of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly

autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in

oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels

for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press.

Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears

peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes

and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning

up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of

the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat

fields breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft

anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered,

and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand

of Katrina Van Tassel.



Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and “sugared

suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which

look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun

gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the west. The wide bosom of the

Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a

gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant

mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air

to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually

into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the

mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the

precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth

to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering

in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging

uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed

along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the

air.



It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer

Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the

adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun

coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter

buckles. Their brisk, withered little dames, in close-crimped caps,

long-waisted short gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and

pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom

lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw

hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city

innovation. The sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of

stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion

of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the

purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher

and strengthener of the hair.



Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the

gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself,

full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage.

He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all

kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for

he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.



Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon

the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van

Tassel’s mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their

luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine

Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped up

platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only

to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the

tender oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and

short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of

cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies;

besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes

of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention

broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and

cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated

them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the

midst--Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this

banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story.

Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but

did ample justice to every dainty.



He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion

as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with

eating, as some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his

large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that

he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury

and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he’d turn his back upon the old

schoolhouse; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every

other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors

that should dare to call him comrade!



Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated

with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His

hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a

shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing

invitation to “fall to, and help themselves.”



And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned

to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had

been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a

century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater

part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every

movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the

ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to

start.



Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal

powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen his

loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you

would have thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance,

was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the

negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm

and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at

every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their

white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How

could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? The

lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously

in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten

with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner.



When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the

sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the

piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about

the war.



This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those

highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The

British and American line had run near it during the war; it had,

therefore, been the scene of marauding and infested with refugees,

cowboys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had

elapsed to enable each storyteller to dress up his tale with a little

becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to

make himself the hero of every exploit.



There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman,

who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder

from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge.

And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich

a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains,

being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball with a small

sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and

glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to

show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more

that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was

persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy

termination.



But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that

succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the

kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered,

long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting

throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides,

there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they

have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in

their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from

the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their

rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the

reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established

Dutch communities.



The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories

in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow.

There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted

region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting

all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at

Van Tassel’s, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful

legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning

cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the

unfortunate Major André was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood.

Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the

dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights

before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the

stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the

Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling

the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the

graves in the churchyard.



The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a

favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by

locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent, whitewashed

walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the

shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet

of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at

the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where

the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at

least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a

wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and

trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far

from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led

to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees,

which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned a

fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of

the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently

encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical

disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray

into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they

galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached

the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old

Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap

of thunder.



This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of

Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey.

He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of

Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had

offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it

too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they

came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash

of fire.



All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in

the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving

a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of

Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable

author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvellous events that had taken

place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he

had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.



The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together

their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling

along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the

damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their

light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along

the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually

died away,--and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and

deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of

country lovers, to have a tête-à-tête with the heiress; fully convinced

that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this

interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know.

Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly

sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate

and chapfallen. Oh, these women! these women! Could that girl have been

playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the

poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?

Heaven only knows, not I! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth

with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair

lady’s heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene

of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to

the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed

most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly

sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of

timothy and clover.



It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and

crestfallen, pursued his travels homewards, along the sides of the

lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so

cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below

him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with

here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under

the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking

of the watchdog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was

so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this

faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing

of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some

farmhouse away among the hills--but it was like a dreaming sound in his

ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy

chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a

neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in

his bed.



All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon

now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and

darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds

occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and

dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the

scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road

stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the

other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its

limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for

ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into

the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate

André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known

by the name of Major André’s tree. The common people regarded it with a

mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the

fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange

sights, and doleful lamentations, told concerning it.



As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought

his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through

the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw

something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused and ceased

whistling but, on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place

where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid

bare. Suddenly he heard a groan--his teeth chattered, and his knees

smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon

another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in

safety, but new perils lay before him.



About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road,

and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of

Wiley’s Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge

over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the

wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines,

threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest

trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate André was

captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the

sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been

considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the

schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.



As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up,

however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the

ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of

starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and

ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the

delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the

contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but

it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of

brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and

heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward,

snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a

suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head.

Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the

sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin

of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen and towering. It

stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic

monster ready to spring upon the traveller.



The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror.

What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides,

what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which

could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a

show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents, “Who are you?”

 He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated

voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides

of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with

involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of

alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at

once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal,

yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He

appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black

horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability,

but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side

of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.



Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and

bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping

Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The

stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled

up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind,--the other did the

same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his

psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and

he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and

dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and

appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising

ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief

against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was

horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!--but his horror was

still more increased on observing that the head, which should have

rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his

saddle! His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and

blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion

the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they

dashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks flashing at

every bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as

he stretched his long lank body away over his horse’s head, in the

eagerness of his flight.



They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but

Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it,

made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong downhill to the left. This

road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter

of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just

beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.



As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent

advantage in the chase, but just as he had got half way through the

hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from

under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm,

but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder

round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it

trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van

Ripper’s wrath passed across his mind,--for it was his Sunday saddle;

but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his

haunches; and (unskilful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain

his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and

sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse’s backbone, with a

violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.



An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church

bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the

bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls

of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the

place where Brom Bones’s ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can

but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard

the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied

that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and

old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding

planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind

to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of

fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups,

and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to

dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium

with a tremendous crash,--he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and

Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a

whirlwind.



The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with

the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master’s

gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hour

came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and

strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans

Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor

Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent

investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading

to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of

horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed,

were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of

the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the

unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin.



The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to

be discovered. Hans Van Ripper as executor of his estate, examined the

bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two

shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted

stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book

of psalm tunes full of dog’s-ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the

books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,

excepting Cotton Mather’s “History of Witchcraft,” a “New England

Almanac,” and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was

a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless

attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel.

These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the

flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to

send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew

any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the

schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter’s pay but a

day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his

disappearance.



The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the

following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the

churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin

had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of

others were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them

all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook

their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried

off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s

debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school was

removed to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue

reigned in his stead.



It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit

several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure

was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still

alive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the

goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been

suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a

distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same

time; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered;

written for the newspapers; and finally had been made a justice of

the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival’s

disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar,

was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod

was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the

pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter

than he chose to tell.



The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these

matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by

supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the

neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than

ever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the

road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by

the border of the millpond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to

decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate

pedagogue and the plowboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening,

has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm

tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.







POSTSCRIPT.



FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER.



The preceding tale is given almost in the precise words in which I

heard it related at a Corporation meeting at the ancient city of

Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most

illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly

old fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humourous face,

and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor--he made such efforts

to be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was much

laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy

aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was,

however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows,

who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout, now and then

folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor,

as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men,

who never laugh but upon good grounds--when they have reason and law on

their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and

silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and

sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight, but exceedingly

sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the

moral of the story, and what it went to prove?



The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as

a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his

inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass

slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most

logically to prove--



“That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and

pleasures--provided we will but take a joke as we find it:



“That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to

have rough riding of it.



“Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch

heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state.”



The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this

explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the

syllogism, while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with

something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was

very well, but still he thought the story a little on the

extravagant--there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.



“Faith, sir,” replied the story-teller, “as to that matter, I don’t

believe one-half of it myself.”  D. K.



THE END.