The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent
pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner
stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of
linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn and strings of
dried apples and peaches hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled
with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into
the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables
shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and
tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges
and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored
birds’ eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from
the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open,
displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.
From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight the
peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the
affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise,
however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of
a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters,
fiery dragons, and such-like easily-conquered adversaries to contend
with, and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass
and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was
confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way
to the centre of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as
a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to
the heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims
and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and
impediments, and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries
of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers who beset every
portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other,
but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.
Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roistering
blade of the name of Abraham--or, according to the Dutch abbreviation,
Brom--Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with
his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and
double-jointed, with short curly black hair and a bluff but not
unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance.
From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the
nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known. He was famed
for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on
horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cockfights, and,
with the ascendancy which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was
the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side and giving his
decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was
always ready for either a fight or a frolic, but had more mischief than
ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness
there was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or
four boon companions who regarded him as their model, and at the head of
whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment
for miles around. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap
surmounted with a flaunting fox’s tail; and when the folks at a country
gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking
about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.
Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm-houses at
midnight with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks, and the
old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till
the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “Ay, there goes
Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture
of awe, admiration, and good-will, and when any madcap prank or rustic
brawl occurred in the vicinity always shook their heads and warranted
Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.
This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina
for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and, though his amorous
toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a
bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his
hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to
retire who felt no inclination to cross a line in his amours; insomuch,
that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel’s paling on a Sunday
night, a sure sign that his master was courting--or, as it is termed,
“sparking”--within, all other suitors passed by in despair and carried
the war into other quarters.
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend,
and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk
from the competition and a wiser (*)man would have despaired. He had,
however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature;
he was in form and spirit like a supple jack--yielding, but tough;
though he bent, he never broke and though he bowed beneath the slightest
pressure, yet the moment it was away, jerk! he was as erect and carried
his head as high as ever.
To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness
for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that
stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a
quiet and gently-insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of
singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farm-house; not that he
had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents,
which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van
Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even
than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let
her have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough
to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry for, as she
sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things and must be looked
after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame
bustled about the house or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the
piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other,
watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior who, armed with a
sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle
of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the
daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering
along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover’s eloquence.
I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they
have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but
one vulnerable point, or door of access, while others have a thousand
avenues and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a
great triumph of skill to gain the former, but still greater proof
of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man must
battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand
common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown, but he who keeps
undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain
it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from
the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former
evidently declined; his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings
on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the
preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.
Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have
carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions
to the lady according to the mode of those most concise and simple
reasoners, the knights-errant of yore--by single combat; but Ichabod was
too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists
against him: he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would “double
the schoolmaster up and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house;”
and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something
extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom
no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his
disposition and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival.
Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang
of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked
out his singing school by stopping up the chimney; broke into the
schoolhouse at night in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe
and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy; so that the poor
schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their
meetings there. But, what was still more annoying, Brom took all
opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress,
and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous
manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod’s, to instruct her in
psalmody.
In this way, matters went on for some time without producing any
material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers. On
a fine autumnal afternoon Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on
the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little
literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic
power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a
constant terror to evildoers; while on the desk before him might be
seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons detected upon
the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns,
whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper
gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice
recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their
books or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master,
and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school-room.
It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth
jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat like the cap of
Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt,
which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to
the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making
or “quilting frolic” to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel’s;
and, having delivered his message with that air of importance and effort
at fine language which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of
the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the
hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room. The
scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles;
those who were nimble 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, inkstands were overturned,
benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour
before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young
imps, yelping and racketing about the green in joy at their early
emancipation.
The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet,
brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only, suit of rusty
black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that
hung up in the school-house. That he might make his appearance before
his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from