suer should vanish, according to rule, in
a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in
his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod
endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered
his cranium with a tremendous crash--he was tumbled headlong into the
dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by
like a whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with
the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's
gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast--dinner-hour
came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and
strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans
Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor
Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after
diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the
road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt;
the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at
furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of
a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was
found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a
shattered pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be
discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the
bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two
shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted
stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book
of psalm tunes full of dog's ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the
books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,
excepting Cotton Mather's "History of Witchcraft," a New England
Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a
sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted, by several fruitless
attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van
Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith
consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time
forward, determined to send his children no more to school; observing
that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing.
Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his
quarter's pay but a day or two before,