第 五 章 · 第5章

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

did ample justice to every dainty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that should dare to call him comrade!

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

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

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

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

invitation to “fall to, and help themselves.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

start.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the war.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

make himself the hero of every exploit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

termination.

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

succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the

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

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

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

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

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

their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from

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

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

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

Dutch communities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

graves in the churchyard.

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

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

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

walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of thunder.

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of

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

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

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

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

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

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

of fire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.

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

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

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

damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly

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

timothy and clover.