heart was his partner in the dance, and
smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom
Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself
in one corner.

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the
sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the
piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawling out long stories
about the war.

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those
highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The
British and American line had run near it during the war; it had,
therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees,
cowboys, and all kind of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had
elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little
becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to
make himself the hero of every exploit.

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman,
who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder
from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge.
And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a
mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains,
being an excellent master of defense, parried a musket-ball with a
small-sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade
and glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time
to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several
more that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was
persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a
happy termination.

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that
succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the
kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered
long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting
throng that forms the population of most of our country places.
Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages,
for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn
themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have
traveled away from the neighborhood: so that when they turn out at
night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call
upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of