Objective: To understand and analyze The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. By the end of this story, we will have practice with Regents style response questions.
- Important Resources:
- online version of text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41/41-h/41-h.htm
- audiobook version of the text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BOYRr48GFY
- Background Information on the Text:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozC2KT_RsYc - tour of Sleepy Hollow cemetery with background knowledge on Washington Irving
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI1K-_VTFrQ - clip from 1999 film version (scene on bridge)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5So0o56Tc - short documentary “A Journey to Sleepy Hollow”
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlXqYLNg8EA - highlights of Sleepy Hollow
- Characters: https://www.shmoop.com/legend-of-sleepy-hollow/characters.html
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
by
Washington Irving
FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF
THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.
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,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
(Paragraph
1)
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 (tendency) 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 tranquility.
(Paragraph 2)
I recollect that, when a stripling,(young
person) 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
noontime, 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 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 (dream). They are given to all kinds of marvelous
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.
(Paragraph 3)
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 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.
(Paragraph 4)
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.
(Paragraph 5)
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 everyone 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.
(Paragraph 6)
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 (without stopping) 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.
(Paragraph 7)
In this by-place of nature there abode,(lived) 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 (name) 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 weather-cock 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.
(Paragraph 8)
His schoolhouse 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 eel pot. 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 pupils' voices, conning over their
lessons, might be heard in 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, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare
the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.
(Paragraph 9)
I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of
those cruel potentates (rulers) of the school who joy in the
smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with
discrimination rather than severity; taking the burden 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."
(Paragraph 10)
When school hours were over, he was even the companion
and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of
the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives
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 neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton
handkerchief.
(Paragraph 11)
That all this might not be too onerous (burdensome) on
the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs 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 (former, in the past) 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.
(Paragraph 12)
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 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 millpond, 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 (teacher) got on tolerably enough, and was
thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a
wonderfully easy life of it.
(Paragraph 13)
The schoolmaster 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 teapot. 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 overran 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 millpond; while the
more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior
elegance and address.
(Paragraph 14)
From his half-itinerant (roaming) 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(knowledge), 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.
(Paragraph 15)
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 spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his
capacious (very large) 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 schoolhouse, 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 farmhouse 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 hillside, the
boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger (forerunner) of storm, the
dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of
birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, 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.
(Paragraph 16)
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 spluttering 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 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!
(Paragraph 17)
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!
(Paragraph 18)
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 (walking), 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.
(Paragraph 19)
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.
(Paragraph 20)
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 babbled 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, 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 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.
(Paragraph 21)
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 his
belly, and an apple in his 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 cozily 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 savory 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.
(Paragraph 22)
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 burdened 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 (attractive articles of little
value or use), 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!
(Paragraph 23)
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 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 parlor,
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-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.
(Paragraph 24)
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.
(Paragraph 25)
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 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; 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.
(Paragraph 26)
This rantipole (wild) 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.
(Paragraph 27)
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 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 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 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.
(Paragraph 28)
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 man must battle for his fortress at
every door and window. 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 (fearsome) 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 to the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly
feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.
(Paragraph 29)
Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature,
would fain have carried matters to open warfare and have 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 a boast of Bones, that he would "double the
schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;" 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 everything 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.
(Paragraph 30)
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 gamecocks. 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 schoolroom.
It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket
and trousers, 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.
(Paragraph 31)
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet
schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at
trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity (exemption
from punishment), 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.
(Paragraph 32)
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 locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung
up in the schoolhouse. 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 (lived), 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 plow-horse, that had outlived almost
everything but its 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
burs; 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 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 broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurking
devil in him than in any young filly in the country.
(Paragraph 33)
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 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.
(Paragraph 34)
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 neighboring stubble field.
(Paragraph 35)
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 cock robin, the favorite 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(throat), and splendid plumage; and the cedar
bird, with its red-tipped wings and yellow-tipped tail and its little monteiro
cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb (vain,
conceited), 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.
(Paragraph 36)
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 little
dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.
(Paragraph 37)
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 in 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 (small ship) 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.
(Paragraph 38)
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 pincushions, and gay calico
pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, 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 throughout the country as a potent nourisher and
strengthener of the hair.
(Paragraph 39)
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.
(Paragraph 40)
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.
(Paragraph 41)
He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart
dilated (swelled) 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(cheap) patron, and kick any itinerant
pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade!
(Paragraph 42)
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."
(Paragraph 43)
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.
(Paragraph 44)
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.
(Paragraph 45)
When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a
knot of the sager (wiser) 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.
(Paragraph 46)
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
(Paragraph 47).
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 defense, 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.
(Paragraph 48)
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 underfoot 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.
(Paragraph 49)
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.
(Paragraph 50)
The sequestered situation of this church seems always to
have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll (small
hill), 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.
(Paragraph 51)
This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous
adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an errant
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.
(Paragraph 52)
All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which
men talk in the dark, the countenances (faces) 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.
(Paragraph 53)
The revel (party) 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 hen roost, 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.
(Paragraph 54)
It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod,
heavy-hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travels 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 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 bullfrog from a
neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in his
bed.
(Paragraph 55)
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 André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally
known by the name of Major André'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.
(Paragraph 56)
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.
(Paragraph 57)
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 André 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 schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.
(Paragraph 58)
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 forward, 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 a 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 and towering. It stirred not,
but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring
upon the traveler.
(Paragraph 59)
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 fervor 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.
(Paragraph 60)
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 endeavored 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.
(Paragraph 61)
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 downhill 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.
(Paragraph 62)
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 endeavored 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 underfoot 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.
(Paragraph 63)
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 sprang
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 endeavored 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.
(Paragraph 64)
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 schoolhouse, 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.
(Paragraph 65)
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.
(Paragraph 66)
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.
(Paragraph 67)
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 (severe
embarrassment) 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.
(Paragraph 68)
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.
Graphic organizer for
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" due
at the close of class on Monday, October 23
NAME__________________________________________________
1. Paragraph 1: establishing the setting and tone
Read the paragraph carefully and underline five words that establish the tone
as set forth in the stanza at the beginning of the story that tells the reader
what Tarry Town is like. List below.
a._____________________________
b.
____________________________ c.______________________________
d.
______________________________ e.
____________________________
2. Paragraph 2 (second part) Write out the
sentence that describes the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow. (Weave in text).
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
3. Why do you think Irving wrote the story in
first person point of view? (analysis; complete sentences)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 4 4. What is the spectre known as?
____________________________________________________________
5. Paragraph 5. Write out what happens
to any inhabitant who “inhale[s] the witching influence of the air?”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
6. Paragraph 7. Why was Ichabod Crane
sojourning in Sleepy Hollow?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. Paragraph 7. Give 6 examples from the text
why the cognomen Crane was applicable to this man.
a.
_______________________________________________ b.
___________________________________________
c.
_______________________________________________d.
____________________________________________
e. ______________________________________________
f. ___________________________________________
8. Paragraphs 8 and 9. What type of
teacher was Crane? Weave in text to support your statement.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
9. Paragraph 13. Why is a schoolmaster
“generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural
neighborhood?”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
10. Paragraph 14. What
may be implied about Ichabod Crane as he was a “perfect master of Cotton
Mather's "History of New England Witchcraft," in which, by the way,
he most firmly and potently believed?”
__________________________________________________________________
11. Paragraph 16. How did Ichabod come to learn of the
Headless Horseman?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
12. Paragraph 19. Who is Katarina and how is she
described?” Write your own sentence, weaving in parts of the text.
_____________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
13. Paragraph 20. Write a sentence describing Old
Baltus Van Tassel that weaves in text from the paragraph.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
14. Paragraph 25. Write two sentences describing Brom
Bones and his place in the community, weaving in textual evidence from
the paragraph. _______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
15. Paragraph 29. According to the text, what types of
“boorish jokes” did Brom and his waggery commit against Ichabod?
___________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
16. Paragraph 30. What message was delivered to Ichabod?
(text)
______________________________________________________________________________________
17. Paragraph 34. List four textual examples of imagery.
(Note imagery includes all senses)
a. _________________________________________b.
__________________________________________
c. ______________________________________ d.
__________________________________________
18. Paragraph 40. Describe the “ world of charms that
burst upon the enraptured gaze” of Ichabod, as he entered the party. Weave the
textual evidence into your own sentence.
________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
19. Paragraph 44. Of what did Ichabod pride himself, as
much as his “vocal powers?”
________________________________________________________________________________________
20. Paragraphs 47-49. Why does the narrator relate these
local tales? How does this connect to Romanticism?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
21. Paragraph 53. What must have gone wrong for Ichabod
and how did he react? Weave in text
.
____________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
22. Paragraph 56. What did Ichabod experience as he came
upon Major Andre’s tree? Weave in text.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
23. Paragraph 58. How exactly does the narrator describe
what Ichabod saw? __________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
24. Paragraph 63. What did the goblin rider hurl at
Ichabod? (text)
_______________________________________________________________________________________
25. Paragraph 67. What eventually happened to Ichabod?
Weave in text into your own sentence.
______________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
26. Paragraph 68. In contrast to the previous paragraph,
what did the country wives think happened to Ichabod?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
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