there at least the dead might 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 favorite haunts of the Headless
Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encountered.
The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in
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 bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they
reached the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a
skeleton, threw old Brouwer 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 Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian
as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from
the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by
this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a
bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for 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, the countenances of the listeners only now
and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank
deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large