mounting a risingground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in reliefagainst the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod washorror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!--but his horror wasstill more increased on observing that the head, which should haverested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of hissaddle! His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks andblows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companionthe slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, theydashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks flashing atevery bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, ashe stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head, in theeagerness of his flight.
They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; butGunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it,made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong downhill to the left. Thisroad leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarterof a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and justbeyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.
As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparentadvantage in the chase, but just as he had got half way through thehollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping fromunder him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm,but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowderround the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard ittrampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans VanRipper'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 hishaunches; and (unskilful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintainhis seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, andsometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with aviolence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.
An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the churchbridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in thebosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the wallsof the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected theplace where Brom Bones's ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I canbut reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heardthe black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fanciedthat he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, andold Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resoundingplanks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behindto see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash offire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups,and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored tododge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his craniumwith a tremendous crash,--he was tumbled headlong into the dust, andGunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like awhirlwind.
The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and withthe bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master'sgate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hourcame, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, andstrolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. HansVan Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poorIchabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligentinvestigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leadingto the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks ofhorses' 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 ofthe brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of theunfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin.
The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not tobe discovered. Hans Van Ripper as executor of his estate, examined thebundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of twoshirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worstedstockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a bookof psalm tunes full of dog's-ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to thebooks and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,excepting Cotton Mather's "History of Witchcraft," a "New EnglandAlmanac," and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last wasa sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitlessattempts 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 theflames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined tosend his children no more to school, observing that he never knewany good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money theschoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but aday or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of hisdisappearance.
The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on thefollowing Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in thechurchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkinhad been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget ofothers were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered themall, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shooktheir heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carriedoff by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody'sdebt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school wasremoved to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagoguereigned in his stead.
It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visitseveral years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventurewas received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was stillalive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of thegoblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having beensuddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to adistant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the sametime; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered;written for the newspapers; and finally had been made a justice ofthe Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival'sdisappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar,was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabodwas related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of thepumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matterthan he chose to tell.
The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of thesematters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away bysupernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about theneighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more thanever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why theroad has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church bythe border of the millpond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell todecay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunatepedagogue and the plowboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening,has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalmtune 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 Iheard it related at a Corporation meeting at the ancient city ofManhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and mostillustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanlyold fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humourous face,and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor--he made such effortsto be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was muchlaughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputyaldermen, 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 thenfolding 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 ontheir side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had sub
sided, andsilence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, andsticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight, but exceedinglysage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was themoral of the story, and what it went to prove?
The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, asa refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at hisinquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glassslowly to the table, observed that the story was intended mostlogically to prove--
"That there is no situation in life but has its advantages andpleasures--provided we will but take a joke as we find it:
"That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely tohave rough riding of it.
"Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutchheiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state."
The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after thisexplanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of thesyllogism, while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him withsomething of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this wasvery well, but still he thought the story a little on theextravagant--there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.
"Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I don'tbelieve one-half of it myself." D. K.
THE END.
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