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Page 13
Together we paced the ample church-yard. With deep veneration would
he turn down the weeds and brambles that obscured the modest brown
grave-stones, half sunk in earth, on which were recorded, in Dutch, the
names of the patriarchs of ancient days, the Ackers, the Van Tassels,
and the Van Warts. As we sat on one of the tomb-stones, he recounted to
me the exploits of many of these worthies; and my heart smote me, when I
heard of their great doings in days of yore, to think how heedlessly I
had once sported over their graves.
From the church, the venerable Diedrich proceeded in his researches up
the Hollow. The genius of the place seemed to hail its future historian.
All nature was alive with gratulation. The quail whistled a greeting
from the corn-field; the robin carolled a song of praise from the
orchard; the loquacious catbird flew from bush to bush, with restless
wing, proclaiming his approach in every variety of note, and anon would
whisk about, and perk inquisitively into his face, as if to get a
knowledge of his physiognomy; the wood-pecker, also, tapped a tattoo on
the hollow apple-tree, and then peered knowingly round the trunk, to
see how the great Diedrich relished his salutation; while the
ground-squirrel scampered along the fence, and occasionally whisked his
tail over his head, by way of a huzza!
The worthy Diedrich pursued his researches in the valley with
characteristic devotion; entering familiarly into the various cottages,
and gossiping with the simple folk, in the style of their own
simplicity. I confess my heart yearned with admiration, to see so great
a man, in his eager quest after knowledge, humbly demeaning himself
to curry favor with the humblest; sitting patiently on a three-legged
stool, patting the children, and taking a purring grimalkin on his lap,
while he conciliated the good-will of the old Dutch housewife, and drew
from her long ghost stories, spun out to the humming accompaniment of
her wheel.
His greatest treasure of historic lore, however, was discovered in an
old goblin-looking mill, situated among rocks and waterfalls, with
clanking wheels, and rushing streams, and all kinds of uncouth noises.
A horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep off witches and evil spirits,
showed that this mill was subject to awful visitations. As we approached
it, an old negro thrust his head, all dabbled with flour, out of a hole
above the water-wheel, and grinned, and rolled his eyes, and looked like
the very hobgoblin of the place. The illustrious Diedrich fixed upon
him, at once, as the very one to give him that invaluable kind of
information never to be acquired from books. He beckoned him from his
nest, sat with him by the hour on a broken mill-stone, by the side of
the waterfall, heedless of the noise of the water, and the clatter
of the mill; and I verily believe it was to his conference with this
African sage, and the precious revelations of the good dame of the
spinning-wheel, that we are indebted for the surprising though true
history of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman, which has since
astounded and edified the world.
But I have said enough of the good old times of my youthful days; let me
speak of the Hollow as I found it, after an absence of many years,
when it was kindly given me once more to revisit the haunts of my
boyhood. It was a genial day, as I approached that fated region. The
warm sunshine was tempered by a slight haze, so as to give a dreamy
effect to the landscape. Not a breath of air shook the foliage. The
broad Tappan Sea was without a ripple, and the sloops, with drooping
sails, slept on its grassy bosom. Columns of smoke, from burning
brush-wood, rose lazily from the folds of the hills, on the opposite
side of the river, and slowly expanded in mid-air. The distant lowing
of a cow, or the noontide crowing of a cock, coming faintly to the ear,
seemed to illustrate, rather than disturb, the drowsy quiet of the
scene.
I entered the hollow with a beating heart. Contrary to my apprehensions,
I found it but little changed. The march of intellect, which had
made such rapid strides along every river and highway, had not yet,
apparently, turned down into this favored valley. Perhaps the wizard
spell of ancient days still reigned over the place, binding up the
faculties of the inhabitants in happy contentment with things as they
had been handed down to them from yore. There were the same little farms
and farmhouses, with their old hats for the housekeeping wren; their
stone wells, moss-covered buckets, and long balancing poles. There were
the same little rills, whimpering down to pay their tributes to the
Pocantico; while that wizard stream still kept on its course, as of old,
through solemn woodlands and fresh green meadows: nor were there wanting
joyous holiday boys to loiter along its banks, as I have done; throw
their pin-hooks in the stream, or launch their mimic barks. I watched
them with a kind of melancholy pleasure, wondering whether they were
under the same spell of the fancy that once rendered this valley a fairy
land to me. Alas! alas! to me every thing now stood revealed in its
simple reality. The echoes no longer answered with wizard tongues; the
dream of youth was at an end; the spell of Sleepy Hollow was broken!
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