The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Page 2
cupboard. Indeed,it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenuearising from his school was small, and would have been scarcelysufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder,and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to helpout his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in thoseparts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose childrenhe instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thusgoing the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tiedup in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rusticpatrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievousburden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways ofrendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmersoccasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to makehay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows frompasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all thedominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his littleempire, 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 somagnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee,and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.
In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of theneighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing theyoung folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him onSundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a bandof chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried awaythe palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far aboveall the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers stillto 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 IchabodCrane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which iscommonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got ontolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of thelabor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the femalecircle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle,gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments tothe rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to theparson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stirat the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerarydish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silverteapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in thesmiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in thechurchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them fromthe wild vines that overran the surrounding trees; reciting for theiramusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with awhole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent millpond; while themore bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superiorelegance and address.
From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette,carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so thathis appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover,esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had readseveral books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's"History of New England Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he mostfirmly and potently believed.
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simplecredulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digestingit, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by hisresidence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrousfor his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his schoolwas dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed ofclover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, andthere con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk ofevening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as hewended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhousewhere he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at thatwitching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,--the moan of thewhip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, thatharbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or thesudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. Thefireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, nowand then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream acrosshis path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winginghis blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give upthe ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. Hisonly resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive awayevil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes and the good people of SleepyHollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled withawe at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out,"floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winterevenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire,with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, andlisten to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and hauntedfields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses,and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of theHollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally byhis anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentoussights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times ofConnecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations uponcomets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact that the world didabsolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!
But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling inthe chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from thecrackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to showits face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walkhomewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst thedim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did heeye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields fromsome distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub coveredwith snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How oftendid he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on thefrosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lesthe should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And howoften was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howlingamong the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one ofhis nightly scourings!
All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mindthat 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 lonelyperambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he wouldhave passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all hisworks, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes moreperplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race ofwitches put together, and that was--a woman.
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 ablooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and meltingand rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed,not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal alittle of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which wasa mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set offher charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which hergreat-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the temptingstomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat,to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.
Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the se
x; and it isnot to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in hiseyes, 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 orhis thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within thoseeverything was snug, happy and well-conditioned. He was satisfied withhis wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the heartyabundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold wassituated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered,fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. Agreat elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of whichbubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little wellformed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, toa neighboring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows.Hard by the farmhouse