had been heard several times of late, patrolling
the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the
graves in the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a
favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by
locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent, whitewashed
walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the
shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet
of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at
the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where
the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that 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 ext