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 situations of the contending
powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood,
sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched
all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he
swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of
justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant
terror to evil doers, while on the desk before him might be seen
sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon
the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples,
popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant
little paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling
act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all
busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them
with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing
stillness reigned throughout the schoolroom. It was suddenly
interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and
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,