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 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 neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over
the land and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place
was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the
settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of
his tribe, held his pow-wows there before the country was discovered by
Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under
the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of
the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are
given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and
visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices
in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted
spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare
oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and
the nightmare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite
scene of her gambols.
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
the gloom of night, as if on wings of the wind. His haunts are not
confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and
especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed,
certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been
careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this
spectre, allege that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the
church-yard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly
quest of his head; and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes
passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being
belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has
furnished material for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and
the specter 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.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic
patrons, who are apt to consider the cost 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 Sunday 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 psalm 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 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 head work to have a wonderfully easy
life of it.
The school master is generally a man of some importance in the female
circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle
gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments
to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only
to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some
little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a
supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade
of a silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly
happy in the smiles of all 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 pumpkins hung sheepishly
back, envying his superior elegance and address.
From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling 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 marvelous, and his powers of digesting
it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his
residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous
for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school
was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of
clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house,
and there con over old Mather’s direful tales, until the gathering dusk
of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then,
as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the
farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature,
at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of
the whippoorwill 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.
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 marvelous 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 moans and portentous
sights and sound 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!
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 provoking 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 bubbled along
among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn,
that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which
seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was
busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins
skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with
one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads
under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling,
and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine
on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and
abundance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of
sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese
were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks;
regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea
fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their
peevish discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant
cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman,
clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness
of his heart--sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then,
generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to
enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.
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 center 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 festoon along
the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar
gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs,
and dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors; and irons, with their
accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus
tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantel-piece; 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 curling 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 ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic
life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side,
and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay
or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic; but
had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and, with all his
overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at
bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their
model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every
scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was
distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox’s tail; and
when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at
a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always
stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along
past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop
of Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would
listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then
exclaim, “Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked
upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good will; and when any
madcap prank, or rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity, always shook
their heads and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.
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.
To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been
madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his armours 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 Tassell 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
meantime, 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.
He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some
renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette,
is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the
redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his
advances, the interests of the former evidently declined; his horse was
no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud
gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.
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 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 brokendown 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 arm 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 he 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 frost 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 fulness of their revelry, they
fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to
tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them.
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 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 short-gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors
and pincushion, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom
lassies, 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, through 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 lassies, 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 tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller;
sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the
whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies and peach pies
and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover
delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and
quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens, together
with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty
much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea-pot sending up
its clouds of vapor from the midst--Heaven bless the mark! I want
breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too
eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so
great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.
He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion
as his skin was filled with good cheer; and whose spirits rose with
eating as some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling
his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility
that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable
luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he’d turn his back upon
the old school-house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper,
and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out
of doors that should dare to call him comrade!
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 grayheaded negro, who had been
the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a
century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater
part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every
movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the
ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to
start.
Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal
powers. Not a limp, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen
his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room,
you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the
dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all
the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm
and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at
every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their
white 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 story-teller to dress up his tale with a little
becoming fiction, and in the indistinctness of his recollections, 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 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; 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
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 specter of
Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times
of late, patroling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse
nightly among the graves in the church-yard.
The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it
a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded
by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed
walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the
shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet
of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at
the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where
the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at
least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends
a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks
and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not
far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that
led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging
trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned
a fearful darkness at night. This was one of the favorite haunts of
the headless horseman; and the place where he was most frequently
encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical
disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning from his foray
into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they
galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached
the bridge; when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw
old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a
clap of thunder.
This story was immediately matched by thrice marvelous 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 marvelous 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 tete-a-tete with the heiress, fully
convinced that he was now on the high road to success.
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 Tarrytown, 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
bull-frog, 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 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 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.
The denouement and catastrophe are fully described on a following page
(147) where Brom Bones threw the fatal pumpkin that eventful night.