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.

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 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 tranquillity.

I recollect that, 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 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. They are given to all kinds of marvellous

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 ninefold, seems to make it

the favorite scene of her gambols.

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.

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 imbibed by every one 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.

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 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.

In this by-place of nature there abode, 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 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.

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 eelpot. 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.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates 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.”

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.

That all this might not be too onerous 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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 that his appearance was always greeted

with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition,

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.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the

marvellous, 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 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 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