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Page 10
Another local superstition is of a less gloomy kind, and one which I
confess I am somewhat disposed to cherish. The Tappan Sea, in front of
the Roost, is about three miles wide, bordered by a lofty line of waving
and rocky hills. Often, in the still twilight of a summer evening, when
the sea is like glass, with the opposite hills throwing their purple
shadows half across it, a low sound is heard, as of the steady, vigorous
pull of oars, far out in the middle of the stream, though not a boat
is to be descried. This I should have been apt to ascribe to some boat
rowed along under the shadows of the western shore, for sounds are
conveyed to a great distance by water, at such quiet hours, and I can
distinctly hear the baying of the watch-dogs at night, from the farms on
the sides of the opposite mountains. The ancient traditionists of the
neighborhood, however, religiously ascribed these sounds to a judgment
upon one Rumbout Van Dam, of Spiting Devil, who danced and drank late
one Saturday night, at a Dutch quilting frolic, at Kakiat, and set off
alone for home in his boat, on the verge of Sunday morning; swearing he
would not land till he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him a month of
Sundays. He was never seen afterward, but is often heard plying his oars
across the Tappan Sea, a Flying Dutchman on a small scale, suited to
the size of his cruising-ground; being doomed to ply between Kakiat and
Spiting Devil till the day of judgment, but never to reach the land.
There is one room in the mansion which almost overhangs the river, and
is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a young lady who died of love
and green apples. I have been awakened at night by the sound of oars and
the tinkling of guitars beneath the window; and seeing a boat loitering
in the moonlight, have been tempted to believe it the Flying Dutchman of
Spiting Devil, and to try whether a silver bullet might not put an end
to his unhappy cruisings; but, happening to recollect that there was a
living young lady in the haunted room, who might be terrified by the
report of fire-arms, I have refrained from pulling trigger.
As to the enchanted fountain, said to have been gifted by the wizard
sachem with supernatural powers, it still wells up at the foot of the
bank, on the margin of the river, and goes by the name of the Indian
spring; but I have my doubts as to its rejuvenating powers, for though
I have drank oft and copiously of it, I cannot boast that I find myself
growing younger.
GEOFFREY CRAYON.
* * * * *
SLEEPY HOLLOW.
BY GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.
HAVING pitched my tent, probably for the remainder of my days, in the
neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow, I am tempted to give some few particulars
concerning that spell-bound region; especially as it has risen to
historic importance under the pen of my revered friend and master, the
sage historian of the New Netherlands. Beside, I find the very existence
of the place has been held in question by many; who, judging from its
odd name and from the odd stories current among the vulgar concerning
it, have rashly deemed the whole to be a fanciful creation, like the
Lubber Land of mariners. I must confess there is some apparent cause for
doubt, in consequence of the coloring given by the worthy Diedrich to
his descriptions of the Hollow; who, in this instance, has departed
a little from his usually sober if not severe style; beguiled, very
probably, by his predilection for the haunts of his youth, and by a
certain lurking taint of romance whenever any thing connected with the
Dutch was to be described. I shall endeavor to make up for this amiable
error on the part of my venerable and venerated friend by presenting the
reader with a more precise and statistical account of the Hollow; though
I am not sure that I shall not be prone to lapse in the end into the
very error I am speaking of, so potent is the witchery of the theme.
I believe it was the very peculiarity of its name and the idea of
something mystic and dreamy connected with it that first led me in my
boyish ramblings into Sleepy Hollow. The character of the valley seemed
to answer to the name; the slumber of past ages apparently reigned over
it; it had not awakened to the stir of improvement which had put all the
rest of the world in a bustle. Here reigned good, old long-forgotten
fashions; the men were in home-spun garbs, evidently the product of
their own farms and the manufacture of their own wives; the women were
in primitive short gowns and petticoats, with the venerable sun-bonnets
of Holland origin. The lower part of the valley was cut up into small
farms, each consisting of a little meadow and corn-field; an orchard
of sprawling, gnarled apple-trees, and a garden, where the rose, the
marigold, and the hollyhock were permitted to skirt the domains of the
capacious cabbage, the aspiring pea, and the portly pumpkin. Each had
its prolific little mansion teeming with children; with an old hat
nailed against the wall for the housekeeping wren; a motherly hen, under
a coop on the grass-plot, clucking to keep around her a brood of vagrant
chickens; a cool, stone well, with the moss-covered bucket suspended
to the long balancing-pole, according to the antediluvian idea of
hydraulics; and its spinning-wheel humming within doors, the patriarchal
music of home manufacture.
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