Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Special Spooky Halloween Episode - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

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Back by popular demand, the Sleep Cove Premium Sale has started. For the next two months, you can get Sleep Cove Premium for free. That's right, completely free. There you'll get access to all my exclusive episodes, as well as every episode, add free. You'll also have access to my own. other podcasts, and their exclusive and ad-free content too. Sleepcove can't carry on without your support. So if you want to become a VIP member and get access to our premium feed,

please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with a bell to get alerts on all new free content Thank you Have you ever gazed in wonder at the Great Pyramid Have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun

Or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti If you have, you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast Every week we explore tales of this ancient culture The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Hello and welcome to Sleep Cove, the podcast on YouTube channel to get a great night's sleep. Please listen to this recording in a place where you can safely go to sleep. This episode is actually being released on Halloween, so happy Halloween to everyone else.

out there. Because it's Halloween, I've read the classic tale of the legend of sleepy hollow, which is a slightly spooky story, so I hope you enjoy it as you go to sleep tonight. I'd like to thank all the supporters who have recently joined my Patreon. That's Susan, Fiverromania, Judy, Nina, Erin, Haifner, Kathy, Matilda, Mary, Grace, Bridget, Laura, Liz, Karen, Sonia, Monica and Kristen. Thank you very much for supporting the podcast. And if you would like ad-fury content, please go to sleepcove.com slash support to see the options for my supercast account. or alternatively go to patreon.com and search for Sleepcove

and you can also become a supporter there. So I hope you enjoy the story tonight. It's quite tame and quite mild but does have a bit of a spooky ending. So if you think this episode is not for you there's lots of other episodes out there, I'm sure you'll enjoy. The story was all.

also written in the mid-19th century, so includes some older ways of writing and English that we may not use too much these days, but I found once the words wash over you, you can easily follow what's going on. One final thing is that I'll be putting this recording onto my YouTube channel as well, and I'll be putting a version on without the relaxing music and the the background. So if you refer your stories without music, please check out the YouTube channel in the next day or so and it will be on there. And let's begin. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. These writings were found among the papers of the late Deidrich Nicobocker. In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern

shore of the Hudson and that broad expansion of the river dominated by the ancient Dutch navigators, the Tappan Z, 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 Greensburg, 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 inverterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern or 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 the high hills, which is one of the most quietest places in the whole world.

A small brook glides through it, with just enough murmur enough to lull one to repose. And the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks. in upon the uniform tranquillity. I recollect when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel shooting, was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at 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, whether I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away from 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 had long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow,

with its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighbouring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seemed to hang over the land and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say 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 play still continues under the sway of some witching power that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions,

and frequently see strange sights and hear music and the voices in the air. The whole neighbourhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots and twilight superstitions. stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any part of the country and the nightmare with her whole ninefold seems to make it the favourite scene of her gambols the dominant spirit however that haunts this enchanted region

and seems to be the commander-in-chief of all the powers in 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 has been carried away by a cannonball 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 the 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 and no great distance.

Indeed certain by the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, alleged that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of the 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 allowing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished 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. It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned

is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley but is unconsciously imbided by everyone who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered the sleepy region, they are sure in a little time to inhale the witching influence of the air and begin to grow imaginative to dream dreams and see apparitions.

I mentioned this peaceful spot with all possible Lord for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys found here that are unbosomed in the great state of New York. That population, manners and customs remain fixed while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of the restless country, sweeps by them, unobserved.

They are like these 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 harbour, and disturbed 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 find the same trees and the same families, vegetating in its sheltered bosom. In this place by nature their abode in a remote period of American history,

That is to say, some 30 years since, a worthy white of the name Icobod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed, 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 least. legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters, the Congo men of Crane were not inapplicable to this 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 on top, with huge ears, large green, glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon a spindle neck

to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding on the profile of the hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have been, mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow aloped from a cornfield. His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs, the window partly glazed and partly patched with leaves of old copybooks.

It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by the wide twist of, 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 the 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 pupil's voices coming 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 perry venture 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 Icobod's crane scholars certainly were not spoiled. I would not have imagined it, however, that he was one of the cruel potentates of the school, whose joy in the smart of their subjects.

On the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity, taking the burden of the backs of the weak and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere pony stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod was passed by with indulgence, while 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 up by the assurance of consolatory to the smarting urchin that he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live when school hours were over he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys and on holiday afternoons would convey 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 him scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread,

for he was a huge feeder and though Lank had dilating powers of an anaconda, but to help him out of his maintenance, He was, according to country custom to those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed. With these he lived successfully a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighbourhood with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. That all this might not be too onerous on the pursues 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 and the lighter labours 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, an absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favour in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest, and like the lion bold, which Willem so magnanimously the lamb did hold,

he would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for hours together. In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing master of the neighbourhood and picked up many bright shennings by instructing the young folks. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays to take his stage, 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 mill pond, on such a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ikebock Crane, thus by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way, which is commonly denominated by hook and by crook,

the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough and was thought by all who understood nothing of the labour of headwork to have a wonderfully easy life of it. The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighbourhood, being considered a kind of idle, gentleman-like 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 supernumeracy dish of cakes or sweet meats or para adventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our little 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 or 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 from his half interrent 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 woman As a man with great iridition For he had read several books quite through And was the perfect master Of Cotton Mather's history of New England witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small, suredness and simple credigulity.

His appetite for the marvellous and his powers of digesting it were equally extraordinary, and both he had increased by his residents in this spellbound region. No tail was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow It was often his delight After his school was dismissed in the afternoon To stretch himself on the rich bed of clover Bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse And there con over Old Mather's difled 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 an 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-paw from the hillside the boding cry of the tree-toed the harbinger of storm the dreary hooting of the screech-owl or the sudden rustling of the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies too, which sparked most vividly in the darkest places now and then startled him, as one of the uncommon brightness which stream across his path, and if by chance,

a huge blockhead of a beetle came to winging his blundering flight against him. The poor violet was ready to give up the ghost, with the, the idea that he was struck with the 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 distant, hill or along the dusky road. 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 marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins and haunted fields and haunted brooks and haunted brooks and haunted bridges. and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horsemen or galloping Hesion of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and the direful omens and potentious sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut,

and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comments and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact the world did absolutely turn round and that there were only half the time topsy-turvy but if there was a pleasure in all of this while snowedly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber was all of the 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 home wards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of his 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 he

was appalled by some shrub covered with snow which looked 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 disarray by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the galloping hessing Hesion on one of his nightly scourings. All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms in the mind that walk in the 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 preambulations,

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 crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole races of witches put together, and that was a woman. Among the musical disciples,

who assembled one evening in each week to receive his instructions in song, was Katrina that, Anne Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh 18, plump as a partridge, ripe and melting, and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally framed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was a whithel, a little of a coquette, as might by perceived even 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 Sardam. The tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal, a provoking short petticoat to display her prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. Icobo Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex, and it is not to be wondered at though so tempting a morsel soon found favour in his eyes. More especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion, old Baltus von 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 peeped 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, and 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 neighbouring brook that babbled along among elders 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 from within it. Morning to night, swallows and martins skim 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, all buried in their bosoms, and others swelling and cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleak and wieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence

sallied forth now and then, troops of suckling pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, conveying high 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, the pattern of her 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 the pedigogs mouth watered as he looked upon the 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 coarsely in dishes Like snug married couples With a decent Competency of onion sauce In the porkers he saw carved out

The furniture sleek side of bacon And juicy relishing ham not a turkey but he beheld daintedly dressed up with its gizzard under its wing and perry adventure a necklace of savoury sausages and even bright shanty clare himself lay sprawling on his back in a side dish with uplifted claws if craving that quarter with a shiverous spirit disdained to ask while living as the enraptured Icobod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadowlands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm, temerment 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 tracks of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness.

Nay, his busy fancy already realised his hopes and presented to him the bluning Katrina, while a whole family of children mounted on top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangled 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. 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 these were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry and nets for fishing in the neighbouring river.

Benches were built along the sides of summer use and a great spinning wheel at one end and a churn at the other showed the various uses to which this employing. important porch might be devoted. From this piazza, the wandering Ikebog entered the hall which stood formed the centre of the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, and dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be span, in another a quantity of lindsay. waltzy, wolfy, 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 gourd of red peppers and a door left a jar gave him a peep into the best parlour where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shun like mirrors and irons and their accompanying shovel and tongues

glistened from the covert of asparagus tops, mock oranges and conch shells decorated the mantelpiece. Strings of various coloured birds' eggs were suspended above it. A great ostrich egg was hung up from the centre of the room and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china. From the moment Iqabod 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 with 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, when the lady of his heart was confined, all which he achieved as easily as a man who would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Icobod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of winds 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 common cause against any new competitor.

Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roistering blade on the name Abraham, or according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom van Brunt, the hero of the country round which rang with his feats of strength and hardyhood. 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, from which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and a skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a tartar.

He was foremost at all races and cockfights, and with the ascendancy, which bodily strength always acquires his 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 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 rogueness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humour at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scald the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles around. In cold weather, he was distinguished by a fur cap surmounted with a flaunted fox's tail, and when the folks at a country gathering described this well-known crest at a distance

whisking about among the squad of hard riders they always stood by for a squaw sometimes his crew could be heard dashing along the farmhouses at midnight with whoop and hello 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 flattered by and then exclaimed, I, there goes brambones and his gang. The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe and admiration

and goodwill, and when any madcap prank or rustic braw occurred in the vicinity, they always shook their heads and warranted brombones was at the bottom of it. This rantipole hero had for some time

singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth ganitries. And though his amorous toings 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 amurs. insomuch, but when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling on a Saturday 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 Ikebod Crayne 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 supplejack, yielding but tough, though he bent he never broke, and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet the moment it was away.

He was erect and carried his head as high as ever. To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness, for he was not a man to be thwarted in the Amolz any more than that stormy lover Achilles. Iqabod therefore made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing master, he made frequent vexamond. 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. Bolt van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul.

He loved his daughter better than even 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 attend to in 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 all plied her spinning wheel at one end of the piazza honest bolt 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, Icobod would carry on his suit with the daughter

by the side of the spring under the great helm, or sauntering along in the twilight, the hour so favourable to the lover's eloquence. I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and one. To me, they have always been matters of a 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 game the former, but still greater proof of generalship to have an obtain possession of the latter, for man must battle his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to sun renown,

but he keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is that this was not the case with their indoubtable brombones, and from the moment Icobod Crane made him, his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined. His horse was no longer seen tied to the palings on Saturday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. Brom, who had a degree in 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,

their knights errant of yawl 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 out 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 in to ridicule in presence of his mistress, and a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner and introduced as a rival of Ichabodots to instruct her in song. 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, Icobod, impensive mood, sat unthrowned on the lofty stall, from whence he usually watched all corners of his little literary realm.

In his hand he swayed a for rule. The sceptre of despotic power. The birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evil-doer. 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 pop guns wheelie-gigs 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 whispered behind them,

with one eye kept under the muster, and a kind of buzzing stillness resigned throughout the schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a black man in towcloth jacket and trousers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of mercury, mounted on the top of the black man, mounted on. the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken cult, which he managed with a rope by the way of Holter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Iqabod to attend a merry-making of quietling frolic to be held that evening at Miner Van Tassels, and having delivered his message with the air of importance, and effort of fine language, he was seen leaving away up the hollow full of the importance and hurry of his mission. All was now Bessel 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, and those who were humble skipped over half with impunity, 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. Ink stands 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 that early emancipation. The gallant icepod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing his best, indeed his only suit of a 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 had domiciled, an old Dutchman of the name Hans von Ripper, and thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in the quest of adventures. But in the true spirit of romantic story, I should give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough horse. That had outlived almost everything but its viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged with a yew neck and a head like a hammer. His rusty mane and tail were tangled and nutted with burrs. 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 metal in his day, if we may judge from the name he was given, that was gunpowder. He had in fact been a favourite steed of his masters, the Van Ripper man, 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. Icobod 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 percondicially in his hand, like a scepter, and his horse jogged on. The motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wall hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty stripper forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Icobod and esteed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans von Ripper and it was altogether such an apparition as it is seldom to be met in broad daylight. It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day.

The sky was clear and serene and nature warmed that rich and golden livery which we all associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some of the 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 neighbouring stubble-field. The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicing from bush to bush and tree to tree,

capricious from their very befrilege. fusion and a variety around them. There was the Honest Cock Robin, the favourite game of Stripling Sportsman, but its loud, querulous note and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds, and the golden-winged woodpecker with his crimson chest, his broad blacked gorgette and splendid plumage, and the cedar bird, with his red, tipped wings and yellow-tipped tail

and its little cap of feathers and the blue jay that nosy cox comb in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes screaming and chattering nodding and bobbing and bowing and bowing and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove

as Ikebog jogged slowly on his way his eye ever open to every symptom of colourally abundance ranged with the delight over the trousers of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast storks of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees, some gathered in baskets and barrels for the market day, and others heaped in rich piles for the cider press. Father on the beheld great fields of Indian corn With its golden ears peeping from their leafly coverts And holding out the promise of cakes And tasty 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 butqueak fields, breathing the colour of the beehive, as he beheld them, soft anticipation stole over his mind of dainty slapchacks, well-buttered and garnished with honey or treacle by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and sugared suppositions,

He journeyed along the sides of the range of hills, which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disc down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappanzee lay motionless and glassy, accepting 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 fair golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices

that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater doubt. depth to the dark grey and purple of their rocky sides. A slope was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with their tide. Her sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water. It seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air. It was towards evening that Icobod arrived at the capital. of the Hare van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old fathers, 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 hats, long-waisted short gowns, homespun petticoats with scissors and pincushions and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Books and lasses almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting wear a straw hat, a fine ribbon or perhaps a white frock gave symptoms of city innovation. The suns 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 Brombones however Was the hero of the scene having come to the gathering on his favourite steed daredevil, a creature like himself, full of metal and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, giving to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck,

but he held a tractable, well-broken horse, as unworthy as 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 parlour 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 on various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to be experienced by Dutch housewives. They were the doughty donut, the tender Oli Coec, and the crisp and crumbling cruella, sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honeycakes, and the whole family of cakes. And when 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 keishes, not to mention broiled chad and roasted chicken, together with the 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 vapour from the mist. 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, Iqabal 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 do with drink. He could not help too, rolling as large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility

that he might one day be long, of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendour. 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 miserable patron, and kick off any itinerant pedidog out of the 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 humour 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 them themselves. And now the sound of the music from the common room or hall summoned to the dance. The musician was an old grey-headed black man who had been the intinerant orchestra of the neighbourhood 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. Icobod 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 him loosely hung frame in full motion. in full motion and clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vetus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the players who had gathered of all ages and sizes from the farm and neighbourhood and stood forming a pyramid of shining faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene

and rolling their eyeballs and showing their smiles from ear to ear and 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 had ended 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 wall This neighbourhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one on those highly favoured 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 the indistinctness of his recollection to make himself the hero of every exploit.

There was the story of Daffoo Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-powdered. from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst out the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mine here 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 whizz round the blade and glance off 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 the apparitions, and the apparitions that succeeded. Their neighbourhood is rich and 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 scared, scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighbourhood. 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 Tassels and as usual were doling out their wild and wonderful legends many dismal tales were told about funeral trains and morning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate major André was taken and which stood in the neighbourhood Some mention was made also of the woman in white And haunted the dark glen of Raven Rock

Who 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 out upon the favourite specter of sleepy hollow The headless horsemen Who had been heard several times of late, patron in the country, and it was said, tethered as horse nightly, among the graves of the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favourite haunt of the troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from among which is decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth like Christian purity beamed 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 and where the sunbeams, seemed to sleep so quietly, one would think that there were at least the dead may 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 favourite haunts on the headless horsemen and the place where he was most frequently encountered.

The tale was told of Old Bruwer, a most heretical disbeliever and 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 brush and break, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge, when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw Old Brewer 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 brombones, who had made light of the galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighbouring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper, that he had been offered a race with him for a bowl of punch and should have won it too the 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 that countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe sank deep in the mind of Icobod. 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 sites 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 favourite swains and their light-hearted laughter mingled with a 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. Icobod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress,

fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed as 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 cotterish 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 Ikebog 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 corns and oats, and whole valleys of Timothy and Clover. It was the very witching time of night that Icobod, 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 cheerfully

in the afternoon the hour was as dismal as himself far below him the Tapin Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly an anchor under the land In the dead hush of midnight You could 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 his faithful companion of man Now and then too The long-drawn crowing of a cock Accidentally awakened

And would sound far off from some farmhouse Away from the hills but it was like dreaming, a dreaming sound in his ear. No sounds of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a neighbourhood marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in his bed. All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon

now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker, the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip tree,

tree, which towered like a giant over the other trees of the neighbourhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, long enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragic story of the unfortunate André, who had been taken prisoner hard by and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded it with 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 doful lamations told concerning it. As Iqabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle.

He thought his whistle was answered. It was but a blast of sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white hanging in the mist of the tree. He paused and ceased whistling, but, and looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning and a 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 bow upon another, as they had swayed about the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

About 200 yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road and ran into a marshy, and thickly wooden glen, known by the name of Wiley 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 with wild grapevines through a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severe trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the

covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeoman 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. As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump. He summed 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 startled, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road

into a thicket of brambles and older bushes. The schoolmaster now besposed both whip and heel upon the starling ribs of old gunwereux. powder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, that came to a stand just by the bridge. With the 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 Icobod. In the dark shadow of the grove, from the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, mischapen, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathering up into the gloom, like some gigantic monster,

ready to spring upon the traveller. The hair of the affrightened 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. Summing up, there was a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents. Who are you? He received no reply. You repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still no answer. Once more, he could gel the sides of the inflexible gum powder and shutting his eyes broke forth with involuntary fever into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion

and with the scramble and abound 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. Iqabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of brombones, with the galloping Hesian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Icobod pulled up and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind. The other did the same. His heart began to sink within him.

He endeavoured to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this 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 giant sky. He was massive in height and muffled in a cloak. Icobod was horror struck on perceiving that he was headless, but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head we should have rested on his shoulders was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle. His terror rose to desperation. He reigned 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 with the thick and thin,

stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Icobod'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. They had now reached the road, which turns off to sleepy hollow, but gumpowder 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 and goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands a white-washed church. As yet the panic of a steed had given his unskilledful rind, rider and a parrot advantage in the chase, but just as he had got halfway 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 endeavoured to hold it firm, but in vain he just had 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, in skillful 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, where the violence that he feared would cleave him asunder. 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 Brombone's ghostly competitor had disappeared. If I can but reach that bridge, thought Icobod, I am safe. Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him. He even fancied that he'd felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, an old gunpowder sprang upon the bridge. He thundered over the resounding planks. He gained the opposite side, and now Icobod cast a look behind him to see his pursuer should vanish, according to the rule, in a flash of fire and brinstone.

Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him, Ikebog endeavoured to dodge the horrible missile, but was too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash, and he was tumbled, headlong into the dust, and gumpowdered the black steed and the goblin rising. passed like a whirlwind. The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle and the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Iqabod did not make his appearance of breakfast.

Dinner hour came, but no Iqabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse and strolled idly about the banks of the brooks, but no schoolmaster. Hans van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Icobod 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' hooves, deeply dented in the road, and evidently at full, furious speed, it was traced to the bridge, beyond which on the bank of a broad part of the brook,

when the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Icobod, and close beside it, a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, an executor of his estate, examined the bundle, which the body of 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 ears, and a broken pitchpipe. As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belong to the community, except in

In 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 falscap, which scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make it a copy of verses in honour of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scroll were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper. who, from the time forward, determined to send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew any good to come of the same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, he had received his quarter's pay, but a day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance. The mysterious event caused much speculation,

at the church of the following Sunday knots of gazes 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 Brewer of bones

and a whole budget of others were called to mind and when they had diligently consider them all and compared them to the symptoms of the present case they shook their heads and came to the conclusion

that Iqabod had been carried off by the galloping Hesian, 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 pedicog resigned in his stead. It is true an old farmer who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Icobot Crane was still alive, that he had left the neighbourhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans von Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress,

that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country, had kept school and studied law at the same time, and had been admitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneared, written for the newspapers, and finally had been made a justice on the ten-pound court. Brombones 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 Iqabod was related and always burst into a hearty laugh and the mention of the pumpkin, which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judge of these matters,

maintained to this day that Icobod was spirited away by supernatural means, and it is a favourite story, often told about the neighbourhood 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 mill pond the schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to decay and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue

and the ploughboy launtering homeward of a still summer evening had often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of sleepy hollow.