Bab Bab 7 · 第7章

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to

be discovered. Hans Van Ripper as executor of his estate, examined the

bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two

shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted

stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book

of psalm tunes full of dog’s-ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the

books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,

excepting Cotton Mather’s “History of Witchcraft,” a “New England

Almanac,” and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was

a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless

attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel.

These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the

flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to

send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew

any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the

schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter’s pay but a

day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his

disappearance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the

following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the

churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin

had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of

others were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them

all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook

their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried

off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s

debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school was

removed to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue

reigned in his stead.

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit

several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure

was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still

alive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the

goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been

suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a

distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same

time; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered;

written for the newspapers; and finally had been made a justice of

the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival’s

disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar,

was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod

was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the

pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter

than he chose to tell.

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these

matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by

supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the

neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than

ever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the

road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by

the border of the millpond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to

decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate

pedagogue and the plowboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening,

has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm

tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.

POSTSCRIPT.

FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER.

The preceding tale is given almost in the precise words in which I

heard it related at a Corporation meeting at the ancient city of

Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most

illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly

old fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humourous face,

and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor--he made such efforts

to be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was much

laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy

aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was,

however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows,

who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout, now and then

folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor,

as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men,

who never laugh but upon good grounds--when they have reason and law on

their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and

silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and

sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight, but exceedingly

sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the

moral of the story, and what it went to prove?

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as

a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his

inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass

slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most

logically to prove--

“That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and

pleasures--provided we will but take a joke as we find it:

“That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to

have rough riding of it.

“Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch

heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state.”

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this

explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the

syllogism, while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with

something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was

very well, but still he thought the story a little on the

extravagant--there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.

“Faith, sir,” replied the story-teller, “as to that matter, I don’t

believe one-half of it myself.” D. K.

THE END.