The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by
Washington Irving
I included “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
in Phantasmal: The Best Ghost Short Stories 1800-1849.
It was published in Irving’s The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon in
1820. Sir Walter Scott used his influence to popularize it in London. Irving
lived a number of years in Europe and spent time with Scott in London, which
prompted William Thackeray to remark that Irving was “the first ambassador whom
the New World of Letters sent to the Old.” Nearly 200 years after its
publication, the common perception is that the headless horseman theme was an
entirely original figment of Washington Irving’s imagination.
It was actually derived from Irish and German
legends. In the former, the headless horseman is a quick rider who races
others, but is not malevolent. This legend is alluded to by Washington Irving
in the story when Brom Bones offers “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.” In the German legend an elderly man is forced to ride on the back of
the headless horseman’s steed and is later thrown off a bridge into a brook.
Similarly, in the story Irving tells of old Brouwer who met the horseman one
night and was made to ride on his steed. “[T]hey 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 treetops with a clap of thunder.”
Irving was the first to transpose these legends
into a written story, which included his excellent characters and his unique
twist. In sum, Irving brought the legend to life in only the way that he could,
with ample comedy sprinkled about.
This does not sit well with some modern
supernatural writers. H. P. Lovecraft is an example. To be sure, there was no
room for comedic effect in the horror tales of Lovecraft. To him, humor spoiled
horror. The kicker is that Lovecraft’s main flaw in his short tales of horror
is his lack of character generation, to which Washington Irving excelled
through comedic effect. If Lovecraft is to be believed, “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” has no place in this collection. After revisiting this tale I believe
Lovecraft is dead wrong. It is planted firmly among the other sequoia trees of
literature found here.
This is the most comedic of the scary ghost
stories that I have collected, yet the end is terrifyingly effective because of
its great characters. We want to know about “the fate of poor Icabod”; he with
his pointy elbows that stick out like grasshoppers’ while riding Gunpowder, his
old plough horse. We care whether he makes it back to the blooming lass that is
Katrina Van Tassel with his saddle slipping and the headless horseman bearing
down. That is when Irving has us and we are at his supernatural mercy.
Only in rare instances does the comedic effect
work in a scary ghost story and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a shining
jack-o’-lantern example of when it does. Before you is the first supernatural
tale with great characters penned in the English language. Before you is a
legend that has been made real in the hands of Irving.
(1820)
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,
For ever 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 it, 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 three 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 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.
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 neighbouring 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
neighbourhood 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 night-mare, with her whole nine
fold, seems to make it the favourite 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 that is 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 harbour, 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 weathercock 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 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 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 pupil’s voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard of 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, that ever bore in mind the golden maxim, “spare the rod and
spoil the child.” —Ichabod Crane’s scholars certainly were not spoiled.
I would riot 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.”
When school hours were over, he was even the
companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holyday afternoons would
convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or
good housewifes 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 neighbourhood, 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 burthen, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers
occasionally in the lighter labours 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 favour in the eyes of the
mothers, by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion
bold, which whilome 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
neighbourhood, 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 labour of head-work, to have a wonderful
easy life of it.
The schoolmaster is generally a man of some
importance in the female circle of a rural neighbourhood; being considered a
kind of idle gentleman-like 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 farm-house, 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.
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 school-house, 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 farm-house 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 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.
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 sputtering 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 day-light 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
toward the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon
found favour 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 these, 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 strong-hold 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 neighbouring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf
willows. Hard by the farm-house 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 farm-yard, 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 its
belly, and an apple in its 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 savoury 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 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!
When he entered the house, the conquest of his
heart was complete. It was one of those spacious farm-houses, 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 neighbouring
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 wonderful
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 parlour, 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
coloured 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 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.
Among these, the most formidable was a burley,
roaring, roistering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch
abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rung
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; had more mischief than ill-will in
his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong
dash of waggish good-humour at bottom. He had three or four boon
companions of his own stamp, 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 neighbours 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 farm-house; 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. Bait 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 the 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 Bait 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 favourable 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 a man must battle for his
fortress at every door and window. He that 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.
Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his
nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and 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 the boast of Bones, that he would “double the
schoolmaster up, and put him on a shelf;” 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 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.
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
game-cocks.
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 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
school-room. 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 looks by a bit of broken looking-glass,
that hung up in the school-house. 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 his name, which was
Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favourite 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 the 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.
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 neighbouring 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 cockrobin, the
favourite 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 odour
of the bee-hive, 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 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.
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
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 riband, or perhaps a white
frock, gave symptoms of city innovations. 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 eelskin 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 favourite 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
parlour 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 teatable, 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 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 tea-pot sending up its clouds of vapour
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
splendour. 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!
Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his
guests with a face dilated with content and good-humour, 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 neighbourhood for more than
half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater
part of the time he scraped away 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
neighbourhood, 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.
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 drawling out long
stories about the war.
This neighbourhood, at the time of which I am
speaking, was one of those highly favoured 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 kind 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.
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
Whiteplains, 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 neighbourhood 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 neighbourhood: 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 Andre was taken,
and which stood in the neighbourhood. 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 favourite spectre of Sleepy
Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late,
patroling the country; and it is said, tethered his horse nightly among the
graves in the churchyard.
The sequestered situation of this church seems
always to have made it a favourite 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 day-time;
but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favourite
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
neighbouring 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 under tone
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, sunk 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 favourite 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 tete-a-tete 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 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 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 farm-house 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 neighbouring 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 neighbourhood,
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 Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally
known by the name of Major Andre’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 Andre 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 school-boy 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 forwards, 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 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.
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 fervour 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 endeavoured 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 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.
As yet the panic of the steed had given his
unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got
half-way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it
slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavoured 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, (unskillful 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 sprung 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
endeavoured 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 school-house, 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 pitchpipe. 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, by several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honour of
the heiress of Van Tassel.
These magic books and the poetic scrawl were
forthwith consigned to the names 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 neighbourhood 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 favourite story often told about the
neighbourhood 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 schoolhouse being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported
to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy,
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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