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 game-cocks. 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 trousers, 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 schoolroom. 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 looks by a bit of broken looking-glass
that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance
before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a
horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old
Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and thus gallantly mounted,
issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures.