(Found among the Papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker)
A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappaan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose, and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.
I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.
From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys through out all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the night mare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander in chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege, that the body of the trooper having been buried in the church yard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the church yard before day break.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
It is remarkable, that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative—to dream dreams, and see apparitions.
I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great state of New York, that population, manners, and customs, remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
In this by place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a state which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather cock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
His school house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shutters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out; an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot. The school house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices conning over their lessons, might be heard of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command, or peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.
I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity; taking the burthen off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied, by inflicting a double portion on some little, tough, wrong headed, broad skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing his duty by their parents;” and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that “he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live.”
When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holyday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and though lank, had the dilating powers of an Anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burthen, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway, with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the children, particularly the youngest, and like the lion bold, which whilome so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot, for whole hours together.
In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by diverse little make shifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated “by hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a kind of idle gentleman like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the person. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea table of a farm house, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver tea pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the church yard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones, or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.
From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spell bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed of an afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by, swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farm house where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hill side; the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech owl; or the sudden rustling in the thicket, of birds frightened from their roost. The fire flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,” floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and sputtering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them wofully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!
But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night!—With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window!—How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a sheeted spectre beset his very path!—How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the gallopping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings.
All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind, that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in diverse shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was—a woman.
Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great great grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.
Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those every thing was snug, happy, and well conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His strong,hold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that babbled along among elders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farm house was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others, swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farm yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it like ill tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart—sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.
The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce; in the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey, but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter, which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.
As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a waggon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where!
When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It was one of those spacious farm houses, with high ridged but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers. The low, projecting eaves formed a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar, gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw footed chairs, and dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock oranges and conch shells decorated the mantlepiece; strings of various colored birds, eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well mended china.
From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight errant of yore, who seldom had any thing but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with; and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were for ever presenting new difficulties and impediments, and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.
Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rung with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad shouldered and double jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff, but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nick name of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock fights, and with the ascendancy which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolick; but had more mischief than ill will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail, and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm houses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “aye, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good will; and, when any mad cap prank, or rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.
This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday night, (a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, “sparking,” within,) all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other quarters.
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.
To have taken the field openly against his rival, would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing master, he made frequent visits at the farm house; not that he had any thing to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and like a reasonable man, and an excellent father, let her have her way in every thing. His notable little wife too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry, for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the mean time, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts, is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoutable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined: his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.
Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights errant of yore—by single combat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would “double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;” and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones, and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by stopping up the chimney; broke into the school house at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog, whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody.
In this way, matters went on for some time, without producing any material effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow cloth jacket and trowsers, a round crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry making, or “quilting frolick,” to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's, and having delivered his message with that air of importance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble, skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside, without being put away on the shelves; inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time; bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation.
The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of broken looking glass, that hung up in the school house. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken down plough horse, that had outlived almost every thing but its viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master's, the cholerick Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal, for, old and broken down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country.
Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad day light.
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble field.
The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar bird, with its red tipt wings and yellow tipt tail, and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white under clothes, screaming and chattering, nodding, and bobbing, and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.
As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider press. Further on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields breathing the odor of the bee hive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.
Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and “sugared suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappaan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain: a few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark grey and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.
It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare, leathern faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk withered little dames in close crimped caps, long waisted short gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets, hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribband, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel skin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.
Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was in fact noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable well broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.
Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white: but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives. There was the doughty dough nut, the tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies and peach pies and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea pot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst—Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.
He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade!
Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to “fall to, and help themselves.”
And now the sound of the music from the common room or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old grey headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped away on two or three strings, accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start.
Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle, and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous; the lady of his 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, gossipping 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 been infested with refugees, cow boys, and all kinds 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 defence, 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 who 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 scarce had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood, so that when they turn out of a night to walk the rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long established Dutch communities.
The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mournful cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major André was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the church yard.
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 day time; 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 gallopped 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 gallopping 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 undert one 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, sunk deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many very marvellous events that had taken place in his native state of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.
The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels, mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light hearted laughter mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they gradually died away—and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tête-à-tête with the heiress; fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chopfallen—Oh these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks?—Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?—Heaven only knows, not I!—Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.
It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy hearted and crest fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappaan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watch dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm house away among the hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed.
All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of land mark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major André's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told concerning it.
As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered: it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused and ceased whistling, but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan—his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.
About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge, was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate André was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.
As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he, however, summoned up all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starvelling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge with a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller.
The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents—“who are you?” He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. —Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.
Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the gallopping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace; Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind—the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror struck, on perceiving that he was headless! but his horror was still more increased, on observing, that the head, which should have rested on the shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle! His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip—but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed, through thick and thin; stones flying, and sparks flashing, at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight.
They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.
As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent advantage in the chace, but just as he had got half way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him; he seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind—for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears: the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskilful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's back bone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.
An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the Church Bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprung upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side, and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer 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 Almanack, and a book of dreams and fortune telling, in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted, in 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, he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance.
The mysterious event caused much speculation at the Church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the church yard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, that Ichabod had been carried off by the gallopping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him, the school was removed to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.
It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same time; had been admitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for the newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.
The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the millpond. The schoolhouse being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plowgh boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.
POSTSCRIPT
Found in the Handwriting of Mr. Knickerbocker
The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a corporation meeting of the ancient city of Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow, in pepper and salt clothes, with a sadly humourous face, and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor, he made such efforts to be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was much laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry looking old gentleman, with beetling eye brows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout; now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds—when they have reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight, but exceedingly sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, and what it went to prove. The story teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed, that the story was intended most logically to prove,
“That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures, provided we will but take a joke as we find it:
“That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers, is likely to have rough riding of it:
“Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the state.” The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism; while methought the one in pepper and salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed, that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant—there were one or two points on which he had his doubts. “Faith, sir,” replied the story teller, “as to that matter, I don't believe one half of it myself.”
D. K.
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The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night.It receives its name from its note which is thought to resemble those words.
——迪德里希·尼克博克的遺作
昏昏欲睡,看得見(jiàn)賞心悅目的情景,
眼睛半睜半閉,面前一場(chǎng)夢(mèng)境;
華麗宮殿聳立在云層,
千古不變閃耀于夏日的天空。
——《懶散的城堡》
哈德遜河?xùn)|岸有一些河灣,呈鋸齒形排列,其中有一處,水面極其遼闊,荷蘭古代航行家稱之為塔潘灣。穿過(guò)這片水域,他們總會(huì)謹(jǐn)慎地收帆,祈求圣尼古拉斯的保佑。此處有個(gè)小集鎮(zhèn)(或稱商埠),有些人把它叫作格林斯柏格,但它還有一個(gè)更出名、更合適的名字叫作逗留鎮(zhèn)。據(jù)說(shuō),這個(gè)名字是附近的一些村婦給起的,原因是她們的丈夫養(yǎng)成了一種癖性,每逢趕集日就逗留在鎮(zhèn)上的酒館里,流連忘返。隨他們?cè)趺凑f(shuō)吧,反正我也無(wú)法舉證,僅僅提一提罷了,說(shuō)明我講述的事情是有憑有據(jù)的。離這個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)不遠(yuǎn),大約在兩英里開(kāi)外,高山之間有一個(gè)小山谷,或者不如說(shuō)是一塊凹地,那兒恐怕是天下最安靜的地方了。一條小溪穿谷而過(guò),汩汩的水聲如催眠曲使人昏昏欲睡,唯有偶爾一聲鵪鶉的輕啼,或者啄木鳥(niǎo)啄木的聲音,才會(huì)打破彌漫四野的寂靜。
記得我少年時(shí),第一次去打松鼠,就是在這個(gè)山谷一側(cè)山腰上高大的胡桃樹(shù)林子里。進(jìn)林子時(shí),正值中午,四周安靜得出奇。我開(kāi)了一槍,連我自己都被嚇了一跳。那槍聲打破了遍及四方的沉寂,久久不息,轟隆隆在山谷里回響。假如有一天我想隱居,躲開(kāi)這紛紛擾擾的塵世,躲開(kāi)麻煩不斷的人生,悠悠然在夢(mèng)境中度過(guò)余生,真不知還有什么地方比這個(gè)小山谷更為理想的了。
由于此地安靜得令人昏昏欲睡,由于這兒的居民(最初來(lái)此處定居的荷蘭人的后裔)性情落落寡合,這條與世隔絕的山谷長(zhǎng)久以來(lái)被稱為“睡谷”,此處的村童則被附近一帶的人一致稱作 “睡谷之子”。仿佛有一種昏沉沉、催夢(mèng)的力量籠罩著整個(gè)山谷,甚至滲透入了那兒的空氣中。有人說(shuō),殖民初期曾有一個(gè)神通廣大的德國(guó)醫(yī)生給這個(gè)地方施了魔法;還有人說(shuō),遠(yuǎn)在亨德利克·哈德遜船長(zhǎng)發(fā)現(xiàn)這一帶之前,就有一位印第安酋長(zhǎng),一個(gè)印第安族的先知或巫師之類的人物,曾給這條山谷施加過(guò)巫術(shù)??磥?lái)果真如此——至今,此地仍在某種魔力的影響之下,使得老百姓大腦受到控制,連走路也暈暈乎乎如在夢(mèng)中。對(duì)于形形色色的奇談怪論,他們都篤信不疑,整日恍恍惚惚,胡思亂想,經(jīng)常以為自己看到了異象,以為自己聽(tīng)見(jiàn)空中傳來(lái)天籟之音和天人的說(shuō)話聲。這兒到處鬧鬼,到處盛傳鬼怪故事,充斥著神秘的迷信色彩;山谷的上空出現(xiàn)流星雨以及彗星閃過(guò)的頻率比其他任何一個(gè)地方都要多;夢(mèng)魔和她的九個(gè)小鬼似乎把這里當(dāng)作了最喜愛(ài)的游樂(lè)場(chǎng)。
這是個(gè)神鬼出沒(méi)的地方,而佼佼者則是一個(gè)騎在馬背上的無(wú)頭鬼,他似乎是所有天神天鬼的領(lǐng)袖。據(jù)有些人說(shuō),他是一個(gè)黑森州的騎兵的鬼魂,在革命戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中的一次無(wú)名戰(zhàn)役里,腦袋給一顆炮彈打飛了。鄉(xiāng)民們時(shí)??匆?jiàn)他在茫茫的夜色里疾馳而過(guò),快如駕風(fēng)飛過(guò)。他不僅出沒(méi)于山谷中,有時(shí)也會(huì)出沒(méi)于附近的大路小徑,特別是離山谷不太遠(yuǎn)的教堂一帶。實(shí)際上,本地區(qū)的一些可靠的歷史學(xué)家已經(jīng)把關(guān)于這個(gè)無(wú)頭鬼的傳說(shuō)細(xì)心地收集起來(lái),并且核對(duì)過(guò)了。他們聲稱,這個(gè)騎兵的尸身埋在教堂的墓地里,其陰魂夜夜都要騎馬去昔日的戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)尋找他的頭顱。有時(shí),他飛馳過(guò)山谷,速度快得就像一陣風(fēng),那是因?yàn)樗R得太久,急著要在天亮前趕回教堂墓地里去呢。
這個(gè)迷信傳說(shuō)的大致內(nèi)容就是如此,它給這個(gè)神鬼出沒(méi)的地區(qū)許多荒誕不經(jīng)的故事提供了素材。該地區(qū)的住戶在火爐邊講故事時(shí),將此鬼稱為“睡谷的無(wú)頭騎兵”。
值得一提的是:我剛才說(shuō)的這種見(jiàn)神見(jiàn)鬼的癖性,并不為山谷里土生土長(zhǎng)的居民獨(dú)有,但凡在此處住過(guò)一段時(shí)間的人,無(wú)不于不知不覺(jué)之中受之感染。在步入這個(gè)睡意蒙眬的地區(qū)之前,不管他們的頭腦是多么清醒,只要待很短一段時(shí)間,吸幾口具有魔力的空氣,一定會(huì)受到影響,開(kāi)始胡思亂想,做各種各樣的夢(mèng),看到各種各樣的鬼。
說(shuō)起這塊平靜的小天地,我多有的是贊譽(yù)之詞。在偌大的紐約州,這種帶有荷蘭風(fēng)情的僻靜的小山谷處處可見(jiàn)。在這個(gè)浮躁的國(guó)家里,他處移民潮和社會(huì)進(jìn)步的潮流洶涌澎湃,催生了各種各樣的變化,而此處的人口、風(fēng)俗和習(xí)慣卻始終不變。時(shí)代的潮流從旁邊悄悄地流過(guò)。這些山谷就像隱身于湍流旁的一個(gè)個(gè)寧?kù)o的小水洼,看得見(jiàn)麥稈和泡沫靜靜地浮在水面,或者慢悠悠徘徊于這個(gè)微型港灣里,全然不受旁邊匆匆流過(guò)的湍流的影響。想當(dāng)年我曾在睡谷里那令人昏昏欲睡的樹(shù)蔭下散步,而今多年的時(shí)光已經(jīng)逝去。但我相信,那些樹(shù)木和人家仍在睡谷那隱秘的懷抱里繁衍生息。
在大自然的這個(gè)僻靜的角落里,美國(guó)歷史中很久以前的一個(gè)時(shí)間段里,也就是說(shuō)在大約三十年前吧,出現(xiàn)過(guò)一位可敬的人物,名叫伊卡博德·克萊恩。此人移居于睡谷,或者按他的話說(shuō)“逗留”于睡谷,為的是教育這一帶的孩子們。他的老家是康涅狄格州,彼州為合眾國(guó)提供了許多開(kāi)發(fā)思想和開(kāi)發(fā)森林的先驅(qū),年年都會(huì)派出大批人才去邊疆伐木,以及到鄉(xiāng)村施教。克萊恩這個(gè)姓對(duì)于他還是有點(diǎn)貼切的——他身材瘦長(zhǎng)瘦長(zhǎng)、窄肩膀、長(zhǎng)胳膊長(zhǎng)腿,兩只手蕩來(lái)蕩去,離袖口簡(jiǎn)直有一英里遠(yuǎn),兩只腳完全可以當(dāng)鏟子使用,整個(gè)軀干松松垮垮,小腦袋,腦袋頂部是平的,兩只耳朵大得像扇子,眼睛像兩個(gè)大大的綠色玻璃球,鼻子長(zhǎng)得似鷸嘴。這樣的一顆腦袋,安在他那細(xì)長(zhǎng)的脖子上,看上去像一只可以隨時(shí)報(bào)告風(fēng)向的風(fēng)信雞。刮風(fēng)天里要是看見(jiàn)他從山腰大步流星走來(lái),衣服鼓起,隨風(fēng)飄蕩,你準(zhǔn)會(huì)以為他是個(gè)餓鬼來(lái)到了人間,或者會(huì)把他錯(cuò)當(dāng)成稻草人,從田間偷跑了出來(lái)。
他的學(xué)校是一座只有一個(gè)大房間的矮屋,用原木草草搭成,窗戶有的鑲嵌著玻璃,有的糊著舊習(xí)字簿的紙頁(yè)。學(xué)校里無(wú)人的時(shí)候,自有巧妙的安全措施——用一根柳條纏在門柄上,再用幾根木樁頂住窗板;這樣,小偷進(jìn)來(lái)容易出去難;此種防范措施,極可能是建筑師尤思特·馮·胡騰想出來(lái)的,而這位建筑師的靈感大概來(lái)源于捕鰻用的細(xì)頸籃那種神秘的結(jié)構(gòu)。學(xué)校地點(diǎn)偏僻,但風(fēng)景還算不錯(cuò),位于一座林木茂盛的小山腳下,旁邊有一條潺潺流淌的小溪,校舍的一端長(zhǎng)著一株粗大的樺樹(shù)。在令人昏昏欲睡的夏日,這里可以聽(tīng)見(jiàn)小學(xué)生們喃喃的讀書聲,聲音很低,嗡嗡嗡的,像蜂巢里的蜜蜂在叫。這種聲音時(shí)不時(shí)會(huì)被老師嚴(yán)厲的呵斥聲打斷,口吻有時(shí)是威脅,有時(shí)則是命令。也可能,打斷讀書聲的是樺樹(shù)枝條抽打?qū)W生的那種噼啪噼啪的駭人聲音——這位老師用這種方式督促混日子的差生沿著繁花似錦的求知道路前行。實(shí)話實(shí)說(shuō),這位老師是個(gè)認(rèn)真負(fù)責(zé)的人,心里時(shí)刻銘記著那條黃金格言:“小孩不打不成器。”伊卡博德·克萊恩的學(xué)生的確沒(méi)少挨打。
不過(guò),我可不想讓讀者以為他是學(xué)校里的一個(gè)心狠手辣的專制君主,以抽打?qū)W生為樂(lè)事。事實(shí)恰恰相反,他在執(zhí)法的時(shí)候,總是區(qū)別對(duì)待,而非一味嚴(yán)厲。他常常輕饒弱者,嚴(yán)懲強(qiáng)者。遇到一見(jiàn)教鞭便嚇得縮成一團(tuán)的弱小孩子犯規(guī),他會(huì)起寬容之心,放他們一馬,而對(duì)于那些桀驁不馴、頑固不化、身穿寬松衣的荷蘭小頑童,為了維護(hù)公理,他就加倍地懲罰。小頑童們繃著臉,硬不低頭,越打越頑固,越打越倔強(qiáng)。他將這種懲罰稱為“代他們的父母盡職”。每次懲罰完之后,他都要對(duì)頑童說(shuō)幾句安慰的話,說(shuō)這都是為他們好,“他們會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)記住這教訓(xùn),在以后的人生中,他們會(huì)因此而感謝他的”。
放學(xué)以后,他甚至成了大一些孩子的伙伴,跟他們一起玩耍。每逢節(jié)假日的下午,對(duì)于一些年紀(jì)較小的孩子,他都會(huì)護(hù)送其回家——小孩子家中往往有漂亮的姐姐或好客的媽媽,后者會(huì)以好酒好菜加以款待。實(shí)際上,他很有必要跟學(xué)生們搞好關(guān)系。教學(xué)方面,他收入微薄,恐怕連一日三餐的用項(xiàng)都不夠——他雖然瘦,食量卻很大,消化力堪比蟒蛇。不過(guò),還是有補(bǔ)救辦法的——根據(jù)該地區(qū)鄉(xiāng)下的習(xí)慣,他可以到學(xué)生家中,吃住于農(nóng)夫之家。于是,他在每個(gè)學(xué)生家里住一個(gè)星期,一家一家輪流住。每次入住,他都會(huì)隨身攜帶一個(gè)小包袱,里面包著他的全部財(cái)產(chǎn)。
為了避免讓農(nóng)夫東家們花費(fèi)過(guò)大,使得農(nóng)夫們覺(jué)得上學(xué)劃不來(lái),負(fù)擔(dān)太重,而教書先生都是些混吃混喝的人,于是他便用各種方法效力,表示自己是有用的,是討人喜歡的。于是,他時(shí)常下田幫著干些輕活,幫著晾曬干草、修補(bǔ)籬笆、牽馬飲水、趕?;貦?,以及劈柴冬天燒火用。他會(huì)放下在學(xué)校那個(gè)小王國(guó)里稱王稱霸的架子,撇開(kāi)那種唯我獨(dú)尊、盛氣凌人的神態(tài),變得十分溫柔、異常隨和。他會(huì)哄著孩子玩,尤其是哄那些幼嬰,以贏得母親們的好感,就像一只猛獅寬宏大量地?fù)嵊⊙蚋?,坐在那兒,把孩子抱在膝上,用腳晃動(dòng)著搖籃,一晃就是數(shù)個(gè)小時(shí)。
除了干這些雜事之外,他還教本地區(qū)的居民唱歌,教年輕人們唱贊美詩(shī),因而獲得了許多亮晃晃的先令。星期天,他會(huì)率領(lǐng)一班精挑細(xì)選出來(lái)的歌手到教堂去,站在教眾面前亮相。此時(shí),他沾沾自喜、不可一世,覺(jué)得出盡了風(fēng)頭,地位高出牧師一籌。此言不虛,因?yàn)樗母杪曕诹?,聲音蓋過(guò)了在場(chǎng)所有的人,奇怪的是至今教堂里仍余音裊裊。在寂靜的星期天的上午,他的歌聲半英里開(kāi)外都可以聽(tīng)得見(jiàn),聲音直達(dá)磨坊水塘的對(duì)岸。據(jù)說(shuō),伊卡博德·克萊恩的歌聲的確具有這樣的力量。這位可敬的學(xué)究便是如此度日,處心積慮地(即普通人所說(shuō)的“絞盡腦汁、不擇手段”)尋找一些零碎差事勉強(qiáng)過(guò)活。有些人不了解腦力勞動(dòng)之艱辛,還以為他過(guò)的是神仙一般的逍遙日子呢。
在鄉(xiāng)下的女人圈里,老師可算是顯赫的人物。女人們覺(jué)得當(dāng)老師的是悠閑安逸、紳士一類的人,品位和才藝都遠(yuǎn)高于粗魯?shù)泥l(xiāng)下小伙子,實(shí)際上,論學(xué)問(wèn)只比牧師低一丁點(diǎn)。于是乎,伊卡博德·克萊恩只要出現(xiàn)在農(nóng)家屋里,勢(shì)必會(huì)在茶桌旁引起一陣忙亂——女人們會(huì)額外添上一盤糕餅或者蜜餞,偶爾還會(huì)擺上一把銀質(zhì)茶壺?fù)螕伍T面。我們的這位知識(shí)分子見(jiàn)年輕的農(nóng)家女們笑臉相迎,不由心里樂(lè)開(kāi)了花。星期天做禮拜中間休息,他陪著嬌娘們走到教堂的院落里,見(jiàn)周圍的樹(shù)木上野藤纏繞,便從野藤上采摘葡萄獻(xiàn)給她們,或背誦墓碑上的銘文供她們消遣,或在眾多嬌娘的簇?fù)硐侣接诟浇哪シ凰吝叀D切┩涟余l(xiāng)下小伙子見(jiàn)他風(fēng)度翩翩、談吐高雅,難免嫉妒,急忙含羞躲避一旁。
他過(guò)的是一種半游牧式的生活,儼然就是個(gè)“流動(dòng)信息站”,走家串戶,把當(dāng)?shù)氐男〉老鲬羧思?,所到之處無(wú)不受到熱情歡迎。此外,女人們敬重他,認(rèn)為他是個(gè)學(xué)識(shí)淵博的人,因?yàn)樗ㄗx過(guò)許多書,可以說(shuō)是科頓·馬瑟的《新英格蘭巫術(shù)史》一書的絕對(duì)權(quán)威(順便提一句,他本人堅(jiān)定不移地相信巫術(shù))。
實(shí)際上,他是個(gè)很復(fù)雜的人物,既有一些小智慧,又有點(diǎn)信神信鬼。他對(duì)稀奇古怪事物的愛(ài)好,以及對(duì)這類現(xiàn)象的領(lǐng)悟能力,都是非同尋常的,再加上生活在一個(gè)受魔力控制的地區(qū),這種愛(ài)好和能力更是加強(qiáng)了不少。無(wú)論多么庸俗的故事,無(wú)論多么荒唐的傳說(shuō),他都饒有興趣地一概接受。他常常喜歡在下午放學(xué)之后,走到學(xué)校旁邊那條潺潺流淌的小溪邊,躺在茂盛的苜蓿叢上面,在那兒細(xì)細(xì)地閱讀馬瑟寫的那些令人毛骨悚然的故事,直至暮色越來(lái)越濃,書上的字在眼前變得模糊不清。這時(shí),他便放下書,沿著沼澤、小溪和可怕的森林,一路走到他所寄宿的那戶農(nóng)家。這是一個(gè)鬼怪出沒(méi)的時(shí)刻,大自然里每一種響動(dòng)都會(huì)令他心跳,激發(fā)他的種種想象。山坡上北美夜鷹的一聲啼叫、預(yù)告暴風(fēng)雨來(lái)臨的樹(shù)蟾的叫聲、貓頭鷹凄厲的哀鳴、樹(shù)叢中鳥(niǎo)兒受驚后逃竄發(fā)出的窸窣聲,都會(huì)使他浮想聯(lián)翩。螢火蟲在最黑的地方發(fā)的光最亮——途中,時(shí)而會(huì)有一只特別亮的螢火蟲從他面前飛過(guò),嚇?biāo)淮筇H绻銮捎幸恢槐款^笨腦的甲蟲瞎飛瞎撞地朝他撲過(guò)來(lái),這個(gè)可憐的人兒一定會(huì)嚇得靈魂出竅,會(huì)以為是巫婆在施巫術(shù)。這種時(shí)候,為了驅(qū)除恐懼的心理,或者說(shuō)為了趕走惡鬼,他唯一的辦法就是唱贊美詩(shī)。他的歌聲帶著鼻音,拖得長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的,十分悅耳,從遠(yuǎn)處的山坡上飄來(lái),或者回蕩在暮色蒼茫的小道上,睡谷的居民們于黃昏時(shí)分坐在自家門前聽(tīng)了,敬畏之心常常油然而生。
他還有一種樂(lè)趣也挺可怕的。在漫長(zhǎng)的冬季的夜晚,他會(huì)和那些在火爐旁紡線的荷蘭大媽們一道消磨時(shí)光——大媽們一邊紡線,一邊把蘋果串在一起放在火上烤,烤得蘋果發(fā)出刺啦刺啦的響聲,一邊還講些神神鬼鬼的奇怪故事,什么鬼田、鬼溪、鬼橋和鬼屋啦,尤其愛(ài)講那個(gè)無(wú)頭的騎兵(她們有時(shí)稱其為“睡谷的黑森騎兵”)。他也給大媽們講巫婆的故事,講早先流傳于康涅狄格州的有關(guān)于各種兇兆的傳說(shuō),有關(guān)于出現(xiàn)在空中的各種恐怖景象和聲音的傳說(shuō),同樣令大媽們聽(tīng)得津津有味;他還會(huì)講關(guān)于彗星和流星的種種猜想,告訴她們一個(gè)驚人的事實(shí)——地球是一直在轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)的,地球人一半時(shí)間都是頭朝下腳朝上生活著,嚇得大媽們心驚肉跳。
他舒舒服服地坐在壁爐旁邊,壁爐里木柴燒得嗶嗶剝剝地響,火光映得滿室通紅,根本不用害怕野鬼光顧。如果說(shuō)這是一種享受的話,那么,這種享受是要付出高昂代價(jià)的,因?yàn)榛丶业穆飞纤麜?huì)感到非常害怕。在大雪紛飛的夜晚,白光幽幽,陰森可怕,仿佛有孤魂野鬼出現(xiàn)在他的面前!他多么渴望遠(yuǎn)處人家的窗口能閃出一線燈光,讓那顫巍巍的燈光灑在這茫茫的荒野上??!不知有多少次,路上看見(jiàn)披著白雪的灌木叢,像是裹著尸衣的鬼魂,嚇得他屁滾尿流!不知有多少次,踩在冰雪覆蓋的地面上,腳下咯吱作響,他被自己弄出的聲響嚇得魂飛天外,看也不敢朝后看一眼,生怕會(huì)瞧到什么猙獰的鬼怪緊隨在他身后!不知有多少次,狂風(fēng)吹過(guò)樹(shù)林,林濤怒吼,嚇得他大氣不敢出,還以為是那個(gè)黑森騎兵疾馳而過(guò),趁著夜色去尋找自己的頭顱!
不過(guò),這只是夜間的一些驚悚現(xiàn)象,是摸黑走路心里幻想出來(lái)的情景。他一生雖見(jiàn)鬼無(wú)數(shù),獨(dú)自出行時(shí),非止一次遇見(jiàn)撒旦變成各種模樣出現(xiàn)在面前,但天一亮,一切妖魔鬼怪都遁去了形影。盡管有妖魔作亂,盡管雜事纏身,他也并不在乎,要不是在人生道路上碰上一個(gè)生靈,他會(huì)高高興興度過(guò)一生的。此生靈給他造成的煩惱,比所有的妖魔鬼怪和巫師巫婆加在一起都要多。這生靈是一個(gè)女人。
每星期中有一個(gè)晚上,一些習(xí)樂(lè)弟子開(kāi)班上課,跟他學(xué)唱贊美詩(shī),其中有一女弟子名叫卡特麗娜·馮·塔塞爾。她是一個(gè)家境殷實(shí)的荷蘭裔農(nóng)夫的獨(dú)生女,年方十八歲,面若桃花、美壓群芳,豐滿得像只小鵪鶉,那張熟透了的嬌滴滴的紅臉蛋賽過(guò)其父所種的鮮桃。她聞名于十里八鄉(xiāng),不僅因?yàn)樗菜铺煜?,還由于其有望繼承大筆家產(chǎn)。同時(shí),她還有點(diǎn)愛(ài)賣弄風(fēng)情,這從她的服飾上可見(jiàn)端倪。她的服飾既有古裝的典雅又有現(xiàn)代服裝的時(shí)尚,極大限度地顯現(xiàn)出了她的妖嬈。她戴的首飾都是純金的,黃澄澄的,是她的高祖母從薩阿丹帶過(guò)來(lái)的。她上身穿一件誘人眼目的古色古香的胸衣,下穿一條惹人動(dòng)心的短裙,露出她那雙在本地區(qū)最漂亮的腳和腳踝。
伊卡博德·克萊恩對(duì)女性素懷柔情和癡心,難怪沒(méi)多久便盯上了這塊令人垂涎三尺的天鵝肉,尤其是到她父母的那幢大宅院里看望過(guò)她之后就更加如此了。巴爾圖斯·馮·塔塞爾老人是個(gè)典型的家業(yè)興旺的農(nóng)夫,樂(lè)天知命、心胸開(kāi)闊。除了他自己的農(nóng)莊,對(duì)外邊的情況他既不看也不想,這固然不錯(cuò),卻將農(nóng)莊里的萬(wàn)般事務(wù)料理得舒舒服服、妥妥當(dāng)當(dāng)。他對(duì)自己的富有感到滿足,卻并不因此而盛氣凌人。他因有偌大的家業(yè)而自豪,卻并不追求生活的排場(chǎng)。他的宅院位于哈德遜河沿岸的一個(gè)僻靜的小天地里,這兒綠茵鋪地、土壤肥沃——荷蘭裔的農(nóng)夫一般都喜歡在這種地方安靜度日。一株大榆樹(shù)枝繁葉茂,遮護(hù)住他的房屋,樹(shù)腳下有一個(gè)小泉眼,呈桶狀,里面汩汩涌出清洌甘甜的泉水,靜悄悄流過(guò)草地,一路泛著亮光,匯入附近的一條小溪中,溪岸上長(zhǎng)滿了赤楊和矮柳。農(nóng)舍跟前有一座極大的谷倉(cāng),大得簡(jiǎn)直可以當(dāng)教堂用。谷倉(cāng)里裝滿了糧食,似乎把每個(gè)窗孔和每個(gè)縫隙都填實(shí)了。這兒,從早到晚都可聽(tīng)到用連枷打谷的聲音,一刻也不停。小燕子和雨燕呢喃作聲,在屋檐下飛來(lái)飛去;一群一群的鴿子在屋頂上曬太陽(yáng),有的翻起一只眼像是在看天氣,有的將頭藏在翅膀下或埋在胸前,有的昂首挺胸,有的咕咕叫著把頭一點(diǎn)一點(diǎn)地求偶。一些皮毛光滑、笨乎乎的肥豬哼哼叫著,在豬圈里過(guò)著養(yǎng)尊處優(yōu)的日子;不時(shí)會(huì)有幾只正吃奶的的小豬跑出來(lái),好像是想呼吸呼吸外邊的空氣。旁邊的池塘里有些羽毛雪白的鵝,排成莊嚴(yán)的隊(duì)列,與成群結(jié)隊(duì)的鴨子一道游水。一群群的火雞咯咯地叫著在院子里亂跑;院子里還有一些珍珠雞,它們一個(gè)個(gè)怒氣沖沖,氣哼哼、不滿地叫著,活像是脾氣暴躁的家庭主婦。谷倉(cāng)門前有只威風(fēng)凜凜的公雞,高視闊步,儼然就是個(gè)好丈夫、好武士、好紳士,它拍打著羽毛鮮亮的翅膀,發(fā)出豪邁和高興的叫聲,有時(shí)會(huì)用爪子刨土覓食,找到食物后就慷慨地喚來(lái)它那總是饑腸轆轆的妻子兒女,讓它們大快朵頤。
這位學(xué)究看見(jiàn)這許多食物可供冬日飽餐,不禁口水直流。他心里像有只饞蟲,不由想入非非,想象著那些跑來(lái)跑去的乳豬上了烤架,肚子里塞著布丁,嘴里含著蘋果;想象著那些鴿子舒舒服服安眠于一個(gè)大餡餅里,身上蓋了一層面皮當(dāng)被子;白鵝們?cè)跍枥镉斡荆圾喿映呻p成對(duì),身上抹了厚厚一層洋蔥醬,安詳?shù)嘏P于菜碟上,就像是一對(duì)對(duì)新婚伉儷??吹截i,他就聯(lián)想到了香噴噴的培根和鮮嫩可口的火腿;看見(jiàn)火雞,他則聯(lián)想到它們被綁起來(lái),腦袋塞在翅膀下面,偶爾脖子上還掛著一串美味的臘腸當(dāng)項(xiàng)鏈;甚至連那只雄赳赳的公雞也直挺挺躺在了加餐盤上,爪子朝天,仿佛在討?zhàn)?mdash;—活著的時(shí)候,就憑它那威武的武士風(fēng)度,是絕不會(huì)如此低三下四的。
伊卡博德·克萊恩發(fā)揮著自己的想象,想得都入了迷。他那綠色的大眼睛滴溜溜轉(zhuǎn),望著馮·塔塞爾家四周那豐茂的草地,望著那種植著小麥、黑麥、蕎麥和玉米的肥田,望著那果實(shí)累累的果園,心里思慕著將要繼承這一切財(cái)產(chǎn)的姑娘,想象力進(jìn)一步膨脹,想到他將會(huì)把這些財(cái)產(chǎn)轉(zhuǎn)手變?yōu)楝F(xiàn)金,投資購(gòu)買下無(wú)邊無(wú)際的野地,在那兒蓋起一幢幢的房屋。他心里翻江倒海,幻想著自己的愿望已經(jīng)實(shí)現(xiàn),已經(jīng)將如花似玉的卡特麗娜娶到了手,并且生兒育女??ㄌ佧惸葞е鴥号像R車,車上裝著家里的雜物,車下掛著水壺和煎鍋,而那些水壺和煎鍋隨車一搖一晃的,他則騎一匹母馬護(hù)衛(wèi),后面跟著一匹小馬,全家取道前往肯塔基或田納西——或者是只有老天才知道的地方!
走進(jìn)馮·塔塞爾家的家門,他的心就完全被征服了。這是一幢寬敞的農(nóng)舍,屋脊高,屋頂呈斜坡?tīng)?,垂得很低,這是第一代荷蘭移民傳下來(lái)的建筑風(fēng)格——那低垂的屋檐在房前遮出一道走廊,走廊有門,雨雪天可以關(guān)閉。屋檐下掛著連枷、馬具、各種耕作用具以及到附近河里捕魚用的漁網(wǎng)。走廊兩側(cè)有幾條長(zhǎng)凳,供夏天納涼時(shí)坐,而兩端各放著一架大紡車和一臺(tái)攪乳器,由此可見(jiàn)這條走廊十分重要,有著各種各樣的用途。沿著這條走廊,心里遐想不已的伊卡博德步入了大廳,此處是整幢宅子的中心,是家里人經(jīng)常聚會(huì)的地方。大廳里有一個(gè)長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的食具柜,上面擺著幾排亮晃晃的錫镴制器皿,照得他眼花。一個(gè)角落里放著一只大口袋,里面裝著待紡的羊毛;另一個(gè)角落堆著一匹匹剛從織機(jī)上取下來(lái)的棉毛制品;墻上掛著一串串的玉米和用繩子穿綴起來(lái)的干蘋果、干桃子,猶如花飾一般,其中還夾雜著許多色彩艷麗的紅辣椒;一扇門半開(kāi)半掩,通向那間最講究的起居室,他探首望去,只見(jiàn)那兒有爪足椅和深色紅木桌子,件件亮得如明鏡一樣;鐵制柴架和火鏟、火鉗都閃閃發(fā)著亮光,而柴架上掛著一些蘆筍尖;幾個(gè)工藝品橘子和海螺殼擺在壁爐架上作為裝飾;壁爐架的上方掛著一串串各種顏色的鳥(niǎo)蛋;房間的正中央掛著一枚巨型鴕鳥(niǎo)蛋;墻拐角有一個(gè)碗櫥,故意開(kāi)著,露出許多珍貴的古代銀器以及精心修補(bǔ)的古瓷器。
自打看見(jiàn)了這些令人賞心悅目的景象那一刻起,伊卡博德的心就再也平靜不下來(lái)了。他現(xiàn)在唯一的念頭,就是設(shè)法去贏得馮·塔塞爾的那個(gè)美艷女兒的愛(ài)情。然而,此舉困難重重,其艱難程度遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)那些追求愛(ài)情的游俠騎士的命運(yùn)。那些騎士要對(duì)付的只是些巨人、巫士、噴火的龍,以及諸如此類容易戰(zhàn)勝的對(duì)手。他們只要打開(kāi)一條路, 穿過(guò)鐵門或銅門,翻越堅(jiān)固的城墻,闖入囚禁著意中人的城堡就行了,容易得就跟切圣誕節(jié)的蛋糕一樣,一下就可以切到中心。進(jìn)了城堡,便能夠獲得美人心了。伊卡博德則不然,他得一路闖關(guān)去獲得一個(gè)鄉(xiāng)村女子的心,這顆心任性,反復(fù)無(wú)常,叫人難以捉摸,總是給你制造困難和障礙。同時(shí),他還得對(duì)付一大批有血有肉的可怕的對(duì)手——無(wú)數(shù)愛(ài)慕她的鄉(xiāng)下少年。那些少年把守著通到她心里去的每一扇門,彼此爭(zhēng)風(fēng)吃醋,相互怒目而視、虎視眈眈,可是一見(jiàn)新敵手出現(xiàn),便會(huì)組成聯(lián)合陣線,合力迎敵。少年中,有一個(gè)身材魁梧、吼聲如雷、性如烈火的家伙最可怕。此人名叫亞伯拉罕,荷蘭語(yǔ)的稱呼叫布魯姆·馮·布隆特。他是本地區(qū)的勇士,素以膂力過(guò)人和好勇斗狠著稱。他膀大腰圓、肌肉強(qiáng)健,一頭鬈發(fā)又黑又短,一張臉帶著野性,但并不惹人討厭,掛著愉快的表情,氣勢(shì)凌人。這么一個(gè)彪形大漢,再加上其力大無(wú)窮,因此獲得“布魯姆勇士”這一綽號(hào),成了個(gè)聞名遐邇的人物。在騎馬方面,他既精通理論又精通技巧,在馬背上靈巧自如,和韃靼人無(wú)異。若論賽馬和斗雞,他每次都能奪魁。在鄉(xiāng)下,有力氣就有威信。于是,鄰里之間出現(xiàn)爭(zhēng)端,就由他裁斷。這時(shí),他會(huì)歪戴著帽子,做出決斷,語(yǔ)氣堅(jiān)定,不容置辯。他總是喜歡跟人打架或者惡作劇,這倒不是說(shuō)他生就一副邪惡肚腸,而是因?yàn)樾愿耦B皮。盡管看上去頑劣不堪,他其實(shí)卻有著俠義風(fēng)骨。他身邊有三四個(gè)哥們,把他視為學(xué)習(xí)的榜樣。他領(lǐng)著這幾個(gè)哥們闖蕩江湖,方圓幾英里內(nèi)有人打架或者出現(xiàn)熱鬧的場(chǎng)景,他們必到現(xiàn)場(chǎng)。冷天,他總是戴一頂皮帽子,帽子上綴一根奪人眼球的狐貍尾巴,叫人一看就知道是他。鄉(xiāng)下凡有集會(huì),就憑著這個(gè)標(biāo)記,人們老遠(yuǎn)就能認(rèn)出他來(lái),隨即閃至一旁,看著這幾位勇猛的騎手呼嘯而過(guò)。有時(shí)候,半夜三更也能聽(tīng)見(jiàn)他們一小隊(duì)人馬咋咋呼呼地從農(nóng)舍旁飛馳而過(guò),就像一隊(duì)沖鋒陷陣的頓河流域的哥薩克騎兵。熟睡的老嫗從夢(mèng)中驚醒,豎起耳朵聽(tīng)一聽(tīng),直至那嗒嗒嗒的急促的馬蹄聲漸行漸遠(yuǎn),這才長(zhǎng)嘆一聲說(shuō):“唉,又是‘布魯姆勇士’他們那一幫子人!”鄉(xiāng)親們看待他,心情十分復(fù)雜,既有畏懼,又有佩服和無(wú)奈。只要該地有人搞惡作劇,或者出現(xiàn)打架斗毆的事情,鄉(xiāng)親們總會(huì)搖搖頭,斷定又是“布魯姆勇士”在興風(fēng)作浪了。
這個(gè)粗野撒潑的英雄不知何時(shí)相中了如花似玉的卡特麗娜,以粗野的方式對(duì)她大獻(xiàn)殷勤,雖然他的愛(ài)情和表達(dá)愛(ài)情的手段有點(diǎn)像一只熊的溫存和愛(ài)撫,但有人暗地里說(shuō),她沒(méi)有完全叫他失望。有一點(diǎn)是肯定的:他的進(jìn)攻就等于是一種信號(hào),使得情敵們知難而退,因?yàn)檎l(shuí)都不愿意招惹一頭正在發(fā)情的雄獅。于是乎,星期日晚上,只要一見(jiàn)他的馬拴在馮·塔塞爾家門外的拴馬樁上,便可以斷定馬的主人在里面求愛(ài),或者用術(shù)語(yǔ)說(shuō)正在“迸發(fā)火花”,其他的追求者便會(huì)絕望地走開(kāi),將戰(zhàn)火燃燒到別的戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)上去。
伊卡博德·克萊恩就是要跟這么一個(gè)令人生畏的情敵一決雌雄。綜合考慮各種因素,比他更強(qiáng)壯的人恐怕也會(huì)退出競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的,比他更聰慧的人也會(huì)以絕望告終。不過(guò),他的性格卻有著剛?cè)岵?jì)的特點(diǎn),其肉體和精神就像一根藤手杖,易彎曲,但堅(jiān)韌,有時(shí)會(huì)彎下腰身,卻絕不會(huì)折斷——哪怕受到一丁點(diǎn)壓力他也會(huì)低頭,然而壓力一消退,他又會(huì)挺起胸膛,把頭昂得跟以前一樣高。
要說(shuō)公開(kāi)對(duì)抗“布魯姆勇士”這樣的情敵,那純粹是發(fā)瘋。這位情敵正在發(fā)情,絕不會(huì)認(rèn)輸?shù)模鋹?ài)情的熱度不次于那個(gè)瘋狂戀人阿喀琉斯(10)。因而,伊卡博德的進(jìn)攻采取的是靜悄悄的迂回戰(zhàn)術(shù)。他以音樂(lè)教師的身份作為掩護(hù),經(jīng)常到她家里去訪問(wèn);不過(guò),他這樣做,并不是怕受到她父母的干涉(對(duì)戀人們而言,父母經(jīng)常是愛(ài)情路上的攔路虎)。巴爾圖斯·馮·塔塞爾平易近人,有著深厚的舐?tīng)僦?,?ài)自己的女兒甚至勝過(guò)愛(ài)他的煙斗。像所有通情達(dá)理、心胸開(kāi)闊的慈父一樣,他由著女兒按自己的性子做事。至于他的賢妻,手頭的事都忙不過(guò)來(lái)呢,既要料理家務(wù),又要看管雞鴨。這位賢妻自有高見(jiàn),認(rèn)為家禽缺乏頭腦,需要人照料,而女孩子是能夠照顧好自己的。于是便出現(xiàn)了這樣的情況:這位賢妻忙得在屋里跑來(lái)跑去,或者坐在走廊的一端紡紗,而老實(shí)巴交的巴爾圖斯則坐在走廊的另一端,于暮色中吸著煙斗望著谷倉(cāng)頂上那個(gè)木刻的小武士手持雙劍跟屋頂上的風(fēng)英勇作戰(zhàn)。與此同時(shí),伊卡博德卻在大榆樹(shù)下的泉水旁向這家的千金調(diào)情求愛(ài),或者陪著這位千金踏著暮色散步。在暮色里,戀人說(shuō)出的話最為動(dòng)聽(tīng)。
我得聲明:我本人對(duì)如何打動(dòng)和贏得一個(gè)女人的心一竅不通。我覺(jué)得情場(chǎng)上的事如謎團(tuán)一般撲朔迷離,讓人佩服。有些女人似乎只有一個(gè)弱點(diǎn),或者說(shuō)只有一扇門可通達(dá)她們的心,有的則有千百條途徑,可用千百種方法一舉將她們的芳心俘獲。要想俘獲前一種女人,必須技藝高超,而俘獲后一種女人就得有更大的本事,必須像將軍一樣懂得運(yùn)籌帷幄,因?yàn)檫M(jìn)攻者必須從各扇門、各扇窗戶同時(shí)進(jìn)攻才能攻克堡壘。贏得成千個(gè)普通女人的心固然值得稱道,但只有能夠把風(fēng)騷女的心牢牢控制住的男人,才能稱得上是真正的英雄。那個(gè)惡煞星一樣的“布魯姆勇士”當(dāng)然不屬于后一類情況;自從伊卡博德開(kāi)始進(jìn)攻,他的熱情很明顯在走下坡路了。星期天的晚上,再也看不見(jiàn)他的馬拴在馮·塔塞爾家門外的拴馬樁上了。漸漸地,他和睡谷的這位教師之間便產(chǎn)生了不共戴天的敵意。
若按布魯姆好斗逞勇的天性,樂(lè)得光明正大地打一場(chǎng),一了百了地解決這件爭(zhēng)風(fēng)吃醋的事情,方法簡(jiǎn)單合理,即按照古代游俠的風(fēng)格以決斗見(jiàn)勝負(fù)。而伊卡博德深知這位情敵膂力超人,哪敢單一對(duì)決。他聽(tīng)說(shuō)這位“布魯姆勇士”放過(guò)狠話,說(shuō)是要把 “這個(gè)教書先生對(duì)折起來(lái),放在他自己學(xué)校里的書架上”。他好漢不吃眼前虧,決不能叫布魯姆的狠話落到實(shí)處。他堅(jiān)持以和平的方式解決爭(zhēng)端,氣得布魯姆無(wú)計(jì)可施,不由將頑劣的天性暴露了出來(lái),搞出一些野蠻的惡作劇作弄自己的情敵。“布魯姆勇士”率領(lǐng)著他的那班頑徒千方百計(jì)地捉弄起伊卡博德來(lái)。他們不斷侵?jǐn)_他那平靜的小王國(guó),堵死唱歌學(xué)校的煙囪,把師生們熏出教室;盡管學(xué)校夜間關(guān)門閉戶,窗戶上裝著鐵柵欄,防范措施嚴(yán)密,他們照樣會(huì)攻入校門,把里面翻個(gè)底朝天,攪得伊卡博德慌了神,以為是全地區(qū)的巫婆都跑了來(lái)施展巫術(shù)。但更叫人氣惱的是,布魯姆一有機(jī)會(huì)就當(dāng)著卡特麗娜的面取笑他,讓他出乖露丑。布魯姆養(yǎng)了一條惡狗,教會(huì)它用一種荒唐可笑的聲音發(fā)出哀嚎,聲稱它的聲音能和伊卡博德的聲音媲美,可以教卡特麗娜唱贊美詩(shī)。
這種狀況持續(xù)了一段時(shí)間,敵對(duì)雙方的情況沒(méi)有發(fā)生實(shí)質(zhì)性的變化。在一個(gè)風(fēng)和日麗的秋日的下午,伊卡博德懷著滿腹的心事,正襟危坐于教室里的高凳上,像往常一樣看管著他的這個(gè)知識(shí)小王國(guó)里的一切事務(wù)。他晃動(dòng)著手中的戒尺(戒尺乃象征著他專制權(quán)力的權(quán)杖),而執(zhí)法用的樺樹(shù)條安居在他寶座后邊的三顆釘子上,這些對(duì)喜歡搗亂的學(xué)生起著威懾作用。他面前的書桌上,可以看到各種偷偷帶進(jìn)學(xué)校的小玩意兒以及嚴(yán)厲禁止的武器,這些都是從不學(xué)無(wú)術(shù)的頑童身上搜出來(lái)的,其中有吃了一半的蘋果、氣槍、陀螺、蒼蠅籠子,還有許多紙折的氣勢(shì)洶洶的小斗雞。顯而易見(jiàn),教室里剛剛出現(xiàn)過(guò)嚴(yán)厲的執(zhí)法事件,因?yàn)閷W(xué)生們都在認(rèn)真看書,但也有的人用一只眼盯著老師,拿書本擋住臉在悄悄說(shuō)話,一片寂靜中可以聽(tīng)見(jiàn)嗡嗡嗡的聲音。突然,這種氣氛被一個(gè)黑人的出現(xiàn)打破了。黑人穿一身粗麻布衣服和長(zhǎng)褲,戴著一種圓頂?shù)钠泼弊樱弊拥男螤钆c墨丘利(11)的帽子一樣),騎一匹臟兮兮、野性未馴的小馬,用一根麻繩當(dāng)作馬韁。他啪嗒啪嗒來(lái)到學(xué)校門前,送來(lái)了一份請(qǐng)柬,邀請(qǐng)伊卡博德當(dāng)晚去馮·塔塞爾家參加聯(lián)歡會(huì)——或稱聯(lián)誼會(huì)。他顯示出很有身份的樣子,說(shuō)話文質(zhì)彬彬、咬文嚼字——黑人辦這類小事,總喜歡講講排場(chǎng)。完成了這項(xiàng)使命之后,他轉(zhuǎn)身離去,縱馬越過(guò)小溪,在山谷里飛奔,表現(xiàn)出有重任在身、刻不容緩的派頭。
剛才還安安靜靜的教室這下子亂成了一鍋粥。學(xué)生們被催得讀課文的速度加快,即便念錯(cuò)了也一帶而過(guò);那些滑頭的學(xué)生甚至將課文跳過(guò)去一半不讀也不受罰;那些讀得慢的,則響亮地挨上一教鞭,以此讓他們加速,或者說(shuō)是幫助他們跳過(guò)某個(gè)難讀的字。之后,課本被隨便扔在一邊,懶得放到書架上去;墨水瓶被打翻;凳子被推倒;全校比平時(shí)提前一個(gè)小時(shí)放了學(xué)。學(xué)生們沖到外邊的草地上,大聲喊叫和笑鬧,因這么早便獲得解放而歡欣鼓舞,就像一群小精靈。
接下來(lái),情意纏綿的伊卡博德開(kāi)始梳妝打扮,在這上面比平時(shí)起碼多花了半個(gè)小時(shí)的時(shí)間。他拿出自己最好的衣服(其實(shí)只是件褪了色的黑外套),又是刷又是擦的。然后,他對(duì)著校舍里掛著的一塊破鏡子把頭發(fā)撥拉來(lái)?yè)芾サ?。為了能夠像一個(gè)真正的騎士那樣出現(xiàn)在戀人面前,他還從自己借宿的那戶農(nóng)家借了一匹馬(這戶農(nóng)家的主人是個(gè)脾氣暴躁的荷蘭裔老頭,名叫漢斯·馮·里普爾),隨即英武地跨上馬,前去赴約,那派頭活像是一個(gè)前去冒險(xiǎn)的騎士。我覺(jué)得,講浪漫故事就應(yīng)該講講故事中真正的精彩之處,所以有必要形容一下這位英雄騎士的儀表、穿戴和坐騎。他騎的這匹馬是拉犁的老馬,精氣神已消失殆盡,頑劣的性子卻沒(méi)有隨之消失。這畜生骨瘦如柴、皮毛零亂,脖子細(xì)得像羊脖子,腦袋的形狀似榔頭,骯臟的馬鬃和馬尾亂糟糟的,沾滿了麥秸;它的一只眼沒(méi)有瞳仁,惡狠狠地冒著兇光,另一只眼則幽光閃閃,仿佛里面藏著惡鬼。想當(dāng)年它一定性子暴烈如火,你光從它的名字“火藥”就能看得出來(lái)。其實(shí),這畜生曾經(jīng)是主人心愛(ài)的坐騎——漢斯·馮·里普爾脾氣暴躁,是個(gè)烈性子騎手,很可能把自己的脾性傳導(dǎo)給了這畜生。如今它已入晚景,風(fēng)光不再,但脾氣比本地區(qū)任何一匹年輕的馬都暴烈。
伊卡博德和這匹馬很是搭配,相得益彰。他用的是一副短鐙,騎到馬上,膝蓋高抬,幾乎能抵到前鞍,瘦削的肘部像蚱蜢腿似的伸出去;他將馬鞭筆直地執(zhí)在手里,像執(zhí)著權(quán)杖。馬兒蹣跚行進(jìn),他的兩只胳膊一晃一晃,就好像鳥(niǎo)兒在拍打翅膀。一頂羊毛小帽扣在他的鼻梁上端(他的前額太窄了,權(quán)且稱為鼻梁上端吧),那件黑上衣的下擺飄蕩起來(lái),幾乎碰到了馬尾。伊卡博德騎著馬走出漢斯·馮·里普爾家的院門時(shí),就是這么一種模樣,簡(jiǎn)直像是光天化日之下難得一遇的幽靈。
這一天正如我方才所說(shuō),是個(gè)風(fēng)和日麗的秋日,天空清澈而靜謐,大自然披著富麗的金黃色盛裝,使人很容易聯(lián)想到豐收的景象。層林盡染秋色,呈現(xiàn)出素雅的棕黃兩色,而一些小樹(shù)蒙上秋霜,顯得色彩斑斕——橘黃、暗紫同猩紅混雜一處。高高的天空中飛來(lái)一行一行的野鴨;山毛櫸和山胡桃樹(shù)叢里傳來(lái)松鼠唧唧的叫聲;周圍一帶剛割完麥子,麥茬地里不時(shí)響起一兩聲鵪鶉的啼鳴,聲聲惹人哀思。
小鳥(niǎo)們正在享受這最后的盛宴。它們歡情一片,撲閃著翅膀,嘰嘰喳喳地叫喊,忽東忽西嬉戲于灌木叢中和大樹(shù)的枝頭間,在這豐富多彩的天地里游玩。這里邊有老實(shí)的雄知更鳥(niǎo),它們是童子獵人最喜歡的獵物,叫聲高亢,似吵架一般;有黑鸝,它們叫聲一片,飛起來(lái)如烏云遮空;有金翅啄木鳥(niǎo),它們頂著紅冠,寬寬的黑肩膀,披一身華麗的羽毛;有黃連雀,它們長(zhǎng)著紅邊的翅膀和黃尾巴梢,頭上有一頂小羽冠;還有藍(lán)松鴉,它們是些吵吵鬧鬧的花花公子,穿著鮮艷的淡藍(lán)色外衣和白襯衫,叫不停、唱不停,又是點(diǎn)頭致意,又是弓腰示好,那副神氣就好像跟林中的鳥(niǎo)兒個(gè)個(gè)都處得相當(dāng)融洽。
伊卡博德騎著馬緩緩而行,沿途觀望各種可以化為美食的果實(shí)和鳥(niǎo)禽,滿心喜悅地欣賞著歡快、豐實(shí)的秋色。四面八方盡可見(jiàn)滿世界的蘋果,或掛在樹(shù)上,壓彎了枝頭,或裝入籃里、桶中,準(zhǔn)備運(yùn)到市場(chǎng)上出售,或堆積如山,準(zhǔn)備榨汁用。放眼望去,遠(yuǎn)處可見(jiàn)大片的玉米田,金黃色的穗子從綠葉下探出頭來(lái),叫他聯(lián)想到了玉米大餅和玉米布丁。黃澄澄的南瓜躺在玉米的穗下,朝著太陽(yáng)挺起它們那漂亮的圓肚子——這樣的豐收情景預(yù)示著將會(huì)有許多香噴噴的餡餅。再往前走一會(huì)兒,便到了香氣撲鼻的蕎麥田,這兒有一股蜂房的氣味。他不由浮想聯(lián)翩,想到了美味的蕎麥薄煎餅,想到卡特麗娜·馮·塔塞爾用她那小小的、肉肉的纖手把黃油涂在煎餅上,再涂一層蜂蜜或糖漿,此情此景叫他心里頓生柔情蜜意。
就這樣,他心里美好的念頭和“甜蜜的假設(shè)”層出不窮,在連綿起伏的群山中沿著山坡前行,遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)望去,可以將雄偉壯觀的哈德遜河的幾處?kù)届坏娘L(fēng)光盡收眼底。太陽(yáng)如滾動(dòng)著的巨輪,漸漸向西方下沉。在遼闊的塔潘灣里,水面平穩(wěn)如鏡,但這兒或那兒偶爾會(huì)泛起幾片微波,輕輕地?fù)u晃,把碧藍(lán)的遠(yuǎn)山倒影拉得長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的。幾朵琥珀色云彩浮在天空,由于無(wú)風(fēng)而紋絲不動(dòng)。地平線抹上了一片絢麗的黃金色彩,那色彩漸漸變成了純凈的蘋果綠,后來(lái)又換成了天空中部的那種蔚藍(lán)色。夕陽(yáng)的一道余暉傾斜著灑在河岸邊巍巍矗立的懸崖那樹(shù)木蔥蘢的頂端,徘徊不去,讓深灰、泛紫的崖壁顯得愈加幽暗。一只小帆船漂浮在遠(yuǎn)處的水面,隨波逐流,船帆毫無(wú)用處地吊在桅桿上;天空的倒影映在平靜的水中,使得那只船看上去像懸在半空。
伊卡博德抵達(dá)馮·塔塞爾家的宅院時(shí),天色已近黃昏。他發(fā)現(xiàn)那兒濟(jì)濟(jì)一堂,都是當(dāng)?shù)氐捏w面人物和花季少女。賓客中也有年紀(jì)大的農(nóng)夫,瘦削的臉上皺巴巴的,穿著自家縫制的外套、長(zhǎng)褲、藍(lán)襪子、大皮鞋,外套上配著閃閃發(fā)亮的錫扣。他們的老伴一個(gè)個(gè)皺臉枯皮,但手腳利落,頭戴縫著細(xì)密褶子的帽子,身穿長(zhǎng)腰身的短上衣和自制的襯裙,隨身帶著剪刀、針線包和鮮艷的印花布口袋。健美的少女們,穿著方面差不多和她們的母親一樣老派,只是多了一頂草帽和一根漂亮的絲帶,也許還多了件白罩裙什么的,于是就有了幾分城里人的時(shí)髦風(fēng)度。小伙子們則穿著短上衣,衣服的下擺方方正正的,上綴幾排巨大的銅扣,一般都梳著當(dāng)時(shí)流行的發(fā)型——能夠搞到鰻魚皮發(fā)膏者尤為青睞這種發(fā)型。當(dāng)?shù)厝送瞥琏狋~皮發(fā)膏,認(rèn)為它能夠滋潤(rùn)頭發(fā),對(duì)頭發(fā)有定型作用。
若論此時(shí)此刻的風(fēng)云人物,便非“布魯姆勇士”莫屬了。他來(lái)參加聚會(huì),騎的是他那匹心愛(ài)的馬“冒失鬼”。 這個(gè)畜牲和它的主人一樣,也是野里野氣、調(diào)皮搗蛋,除了主人,別人誰(shuí)都駕馭不了它。其實(shí),“布魯姆勇士”就喜歡騎心術(shù)不正的馬,喜歡那些愛(ài)使壞心眼,巴不得叫騎手摔死的馬,因?yàn)樵谒磥?lái),容易駕馭的馴良的馬不配給勇敢無(wú)畏的小伙子當(dāng)坐騎。
說(shuō)到此,我想再講講本故事男主角的情況——他一走進(jìn)馮·塔塞爾家那輝煌壯麗的大廳,看見(jiàn)眼前種種誘人的景象,不由高興得睜大了眼睛。真正吸引他眼球的并非那些豐滿漂亮的少女和她們紅紅白白的服飾,而是在這果實(shí)累累的秋天里,那地道的、令人垂涎欲滴的荷蘭鄉(xiāng)村茶桌。只見(jiàn)那兒擺著一盤一盤各種各樣的糕餅,有些種類簡(jiǎn)直叫不出名來(lái),恐怕只有經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的荷蘭主婦才知道!其中有可口的炸面卷,有又軟又糯的豬油煎餅,有又松又脆的炸糖糕,還有甜餅、松餅、姜餅、蜜餅和形形色色說(shuō)不清的餅。另外還有蘋果餡餅、桃肉餡餅和南瓜餡餅;有火腿片和熏牛肉;有一大盤一大盤的李子干、桃脯、梨脯和溫柏果干;當(dāng)然也有烤鰣魚、燒仔雞以及大碗大碗的牛奶和奶油,盤碗交織,擺了一大桌,情況大致如我所列。桌子的中央有一把古香古色的茶壺,壺嘴里冒出氤氳的熱氣……那氣派的場(chǎng)面真是叫人嘆為觀止!真該多費(fèi)些口舌把這些美食細(xì)細(xì)描述描述,可惜我已說(shuō)得氣喘吁吁,再加上時(shí)間有限,只好急匆匆講下文了。幸虧伊卡博德·克萊恩沒(méi)有像我這個(gè)記錄者這般趕時(shí)間,而是不慌不忙地品嘗每一種美食。
他這個(gè)人心地好、知道感恩,吃了別人家的東西,心里便高興,臉上便歡笑——愛(ài)喝酒的人幾杯酒落肚也是這種情形。他一邊吃,一邊禁不住溜溜轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)著大眼睛觀察四周,望著那奢華、輝煌得簡(jiǎn)直讓人無(wú)法想象的場(chǎng)面,想到有朝一日自己有可能成為這兒的主人,便啞然失笑。他心想,用不了多久,他便會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)地離開(kāi)那座破舊的校舍;他會(huì)沖著漢斯·馮·里普爾以及其他所有吝嗇的東家輕蔑地打個(gè)響指,叫那些巡回借宿的膽敢稱他為同行的教師統(tǒng)統(tǒng)滾蛋!
巴爾圖斯·馮·塔塞爾在客人中間走來(lái)走去,面帶滿足和歡快的神情,一張圓臉、喜氣洋洋,宛若中秋的滿月。他表達(dá)熱情的方式很簡(jiǎn)單,但效果很好——對(duì)待客人們,他僅僅是握握手、拍拍肩膀、哈哈大聲笑笑,說(shuō)一聲“別客氣,請(qǐng)隨便喲”。
這時(shí)候,從休息室(或稱會(huì)客大廳)里傳來(lái)奏樂(lè)聲,召喚賓客們前去跳舞。樂(lè)手是個(gè)頭發(fā)灰白的老黑人,此人在該地區(qū)沿街賣藝已有半個(gè)多世紀(jì)。他的樂(lè)器和他本人一樣衰老、破舊,大部分時(shí)間僅靠?jī)扇傧易鄻?lè)。只見(jiàn)他拉一下弓點(diǎn)一下頭;每當(dāng)有新舞伴進(jìn)入舞池,他便鞠一躬,幾乎一躬到地,而且還跺一下腳。
伊卡博德對(duì)于自己的舞姿和歌喉頗感自豪。跳舞時(shí),他手舞足蹈,渾身上下每一塊肌肉都在舞動(dòng)??匆?jiàn)他那松松垮垮的身子骨左擺右晃,踢踢踏踏滿屋子跑,你準(zhǔn)會(huì)以為那是受上天祝福的舞蹈家圣·維塔斯(12)轉(zhuǎn)世現(xiàn)身了。他簡(jiǎn)直成了全體黑人崇拜的偶像;黑人們老老少少、高高矮矮,從農(nóng)場(chǎng)和各戶人家趕來(lái)看熱鬧,擠在門前,擁在窗口,一張張黑亮黑亮的臉聚在一起形成了金字塔狀,目光中充滿了喜悅,白白的眼球骨碌碌亂轉(zhuǎn),齜出一口白牙咧嘴大笑。我們的這位喜歡用教鞭抽打頑童的教師見(jiàn)狀愈加起勁,愈加歡快。他的舞伴不是別人,正是他的心上人——這位舞伴見(jiàn)他脈脈含情、頻拋媚眼,便淡雅地嫣然一笑。“布魯姆勇士”看在眼里,恨在心頭,嫉妒得不得了,坐在墻角獨(dú)自生悶氣。
跳舞結(jié)束之后,伊卡博德被一群比較有智慧的人吸引了過(guò)去——那些人和馮·塔塞爾老頭坐在走廊的一端談天說(shuō)地,又是回憶往事,又是大講特講戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的故事。在我所說(shuō)的那個(gè)時(shí)代,這個(gè)地區(qū)可以說(shuō)是塊靈地,滿是歷史典故,是個(gè)英才輩出的地方。戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)期間,英軍和美軍曾在附近對(duì)壘;因而,此處匪患滋生,難民、牛仔以及各種邊境的游騎將這兒攪得雞犬不寧。時(shí)光流逝,每一個(gè)講述歷史故事的人都會(huì)憑著想象添油加醋,在記得不大清楚的時(shí)候,索性把自己說(shuō)成是種種功業(yè)中的英雄。
這里可以聽(tīng)到道夫·馬特林講的故事。此人是個(gè)荷蘭佬,身材高大,胡須發(fā)藍(lán),據(jù)說(shuō)曾在戰(zhàn)壕里開(kāi)炮,用一門鐵炮發(fā)射九磅重的炮彈,差點(diǎn)炸沉一艘英國(guó)戰(zhàn)艦,只可惜他的那門炮開(kāi)到第六炮時(shí)就報(bào)銷了。還有位老先生也講了段故事,此處就不提他的姓名了,他是個(gè)非常有錢的老爺,不能隨便加以議論。他說(shuō)他參加過(guò)白色平原戰(zhàn)役,在那次防御戰(zhàn)中作戰(zhàn)出色,用一把短劍擋飛了一顆毛瑟槍的子彈;當(dāng)時(shí),他覺(jué)得子彈嗖的一聲貼著劍鋒飛過(guò),擊在劍柄上彈了出去。為了證明自己所言不虛,他隨時(shí)都愿意出示那把劍,讓大家看看被子彈打得有點(diǎn)歪的劍柄。另外還有幾個(gè)人也說(shuō)自己曾在戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)上出生入死,建立了赫赫戰(zhàn)功,幾乎全都認(rèn)為自己發(fā)揮過(guò)相當(dāng)大的作用,才使得戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)最終能圓滿地結(jié)束。
不過(guò),比起接下來(lái)講的鬼怪傳奇和幽靈故事,這類戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)故事就是小巫見(jiàn)大巫了。該地區(qū)廣為流傳神鬼故事,這成為當(dāng)?shù)氐囊环N瑰寶。此處比較封閉,歷史悠久,成為各種傳說(shuō)和封建迷信的肥沃土壤。然而,流動(dòng)人口在鄉(xiāng)下的大多數(shù)地方無(wú)處不在,他們對(duì)這類傳說(shuō)不屑一顧。講神鬼故事,在大多數(shù)村子里是沒(méi)有市場(chǎng)的。不等墳?zāi)估锏墓砘晁弦挥X(jué)、伸個(gè)懶腰,活著的人早已走掉,到別的地方去了。于是乎,待鬼魂夜間出來(lái)走動(dòng)時(shí),想找個(gè)熟悉的人都找不到了。我們之所以只能在歷史悠久的荷蘭裔居住區(qū)聽(tīng)到神鬼故事,而在他處少有所聞,這恐怕便是其中的原因了。
不過(guò),這一帶流行神鬼故事,最直接的原因,無(wú)疑還是由于與睡谷緊鄰。睡谷是個(gè)鬧鬼的地方,那兒吹來(lái)的風(fēng)都帶有傳染性,把夢(mèng)境和幻想的氣息帶往四面八方。當(dāng)時(shí)在馮·塔塞爾家里,正好有幾位睡谷里的人也在場(chǎng),他們照例又傳播了一通千奇百怪的故事。有些故事聳人聽(tīng)聞,講的是附近的一棵參天大樹(shù),而倒霉的安德烈少校(13)就是在那棵樹(shù)下被抓住的,據(jù)說(shuō)有人夜里看見(jiàn)了鬼出殯,聽(tīng)見(jiàn)了鬼哭喪。有的故事講的是一身素白的女鬼,她經(jīng)常出沒(méi)于烏鴉山的幽暗山谷里,冬夜暴風(fēng)雪來(lái)臨之前常聽(tīng)見(jiàn)她那凄厲的叫喊——據(jù)說(shuō),她就是死在那兒的雪地里。這類故事的壓軸戲仍是人們所喜歡的睡谷幽靈——無(wú)頭騎兵,有人最近聽(tīng)見(jiàn)他經(jīng)常在這一帶巡邏,據(jù)說(shuō)每天夜里都把馬拴在教堂墓地里的墳塋之間。
這座教堂地處荒郊野外,似乎怨鬼最喜歡在這樣的地方作祟。它矗立在一個(gè)小山崗之上,周圍郁郁蔥蔥全是刺槐和高聳的榆樹(shù),它那潔白的粉墻在幽暗的林蔭里羞答答地閃著微光,仿佛是純潔的基督徒少女在含羞微笑。山坡的坡度比較緩和,一直通向一片由參天大樹(shù)環(huán)繞的銀光閃閃的水面,透過(guò)大樹(shù)間的縫隙可以窺見(jiàn)哈德遜河岸上的巍巍青山。望一眼那長(zhǎng)滿青草的墓地,看見(jiàn)那兒陽(yáng)光靜謐,你會(huì)油然想到亡魂至少在那個(gè)地方可以得到安靜的休息。在教堂的一側(cè),有一條寬寬的林木蔥蘢的山谷,谷中有一道奔騰咆哮的山澗,澗水中滿都是亂石和倒下來(lái)的樹(shù)干。距離教堂不遠(yuǎn)的這一段水流又深又黑,從前上面架著一座木橋。一條路通到橋跟前,而路和橋都被濃蔭遮蓋,掩沒(méi)在林木之中,即便在大白天也陰森森的,夜間更是漆黑一團(tuán)、猙獰可怕了。無(wú)頭騎兵最喜歡這種地方,于是這兒就成了他常來(lái)常往之地。布魯威爾老頭是不信邪,不信鬼的;據(jù)他講述,有一次路遇無(wú)頭騎兵從睡谷里跑出來(lái),他便跟在后邊窮追不舍,飛馬越過(guò)荊棘和矮樹(shù),爬過(guò)山坡,穿過(guò)沼澤,最后來(lái)到了木橋跟前。此時(shí),無(wú)頭騎兵搖身一變成了一具骷髏,抓住布魯威爾老頭,一把將他拋進(jìn)山澗,隨后轟隆一聲響,騰空而起,消失在了樹(shù)林的上空。
這個(gè)故事立刻就被“布魯姆勇士”的故事超越了,后者講述了一段自己的親身經(jīng)歷,比這個(gè)故事要驚險(xiǎn)三倍。他把那個(gè)黑森騎兵根本不放在眼里,覺(jué)得對(duì)方只不過(guò)是個(gè)徒有虛名的騎手罷了。他口氣堅(jiān)定地說(shuō):一天夜里,他從鄰近的辛辛村回家,這個(gè)黑森騎兵從后面趕了上來(lái)。他提出要跟對(duì)方賽馬,賭一碗酒喝。他本來(lái)是可以贏的,因?yàn)?ldquo;冒失鬼”可以輕而易舉擊敗那匹幽靈馬。可是,剛到教堂旁的木橋跟前,黑森騎兵便打了退堂鼓,化作一道火光不見(jiàn)了。
這些故事是在黑暗中講述的,講述人聲音含糊、低沉,時(shí)不時(shí)會(huì)有人抽上一口煙袋,而煙袋的火光會(huì)將聽(tīng)者的臉照亮。這些故事深深地印在了伊卡博德的心上。他投桃報(bào)李,引用了自己珍視的作家科頓·馬瑟書里的幾大段故事講給大家聽(tīng),中間還添加了許多他的故鄉(xiāng)康涅狄格州的靈異事件,以及他在睡谷里走夜路時(shí)看到的各種恐怖現(xiàn)象。
這時(shí),前來(lái)聚會(huì)尋歡的人群漸漸散了。老農(nóng)夫們呼兒?jiǎn)九?,讓全家人坐上馬車踏上歸程,轆轆的馬車聲久久回蕩在空曠的路上和遠(yuǎn)處的山間。姑娘們騎到馬上,坐在意中人身后的馬鞍上,開(kāi)心地笑著,她們的鶯聲燕語(yǔ)和嗒嗒嗒的馬蹄聲混雜在一起,蕩漾于寧?kù)o的山林里,漸行漸弱,乃至最后徹底消失。大廳里剛才還人聲鼎沸,一片熱鬧的景象,一下子就人去屋空,變得靜悄悄的了。伊卡博德逗留未去,因?yàn)楦鶕?jù)本地鄉(xiāng)村的風(fēng)俗習(xí)慣,情郎臨別時(shí)得和女方說(shuō)幾句貼心的話。此時(shí)的他已胸有成竹,覺(jué)得自己已經(jīng)登上了成功的大道。至于二人之間談得怎么樣,我就不便亂說(shuō)了——其實(shí)我對(duì)當(dāng)時(shí)的情況一無(wú)所知。不過(guò),從某種跡象看來(lái)情況不妙。事實(shí)上,他沒(méi)過(guò)多大一會(huì)兒就跑了出來(lái),灰溜溜的,神情沮喪。唉,女人呀,女人!女人真是叫人難以捉摸!莫非那個(gè)小女子又玩什么鬼花樣啦?難道她挑逗這個(gè)可憐的學(xué)究?jī)H僅是個(gè)激將法,實(shí)則是為了套牢他的那個(gè)情敵?這只有天知地知,我卻不知!我只能說(shuō):伊卡博德垂頭喪氣地溜了出來(lái),全然不像一個(gè)前來(lái)俘虜美人心的勇士,倒像是個(gè)偷雞賊。平時(shí)他來(lái)美人家,對(duì)她家的財(cái)富垂涎欲滴,總是左看右看的,此時(shí)已沒(méi)有了這份心情,而是徑直走到馬廄,拳打腳踢地狠狠給了他那匹馬幾下子,毫不體貼地把它驚醒過(guò)來(lái),哪管它在舒適的馬廄里睡得正香,哪管它正在做美夢(mèng),夢(mèng)見(jiàn)玉米和燕麥堆成了山,山谷里遍地都是貓尾草和苜蓿。
此時(shí)已是深夜,是鬼魂出沒(méi)的時(shí)間。伊卡博德心情沉重、垂頭喪氣地打道回府,沿著逗留鎮(zhèn)旁高山的山腰一路走去。下午時(shí)分,他曾沿著同一條路興沖沖而來(lái),現(xiàn)在卻敗興而歸。茫茫的夜色和他的心情一樣,也是那般凄涼。塔潘灣在山下很遠(yuǎn)的地方,水面昏暗而朦朧,一片荒涼的景象;在岸邊的幾處地方停泊著小船,可以看見(jiàn)它們那高高的桅桿。在這死沉沉的深夜里,甚至連哈德遜河對(duì)岸的狗吠聲他也能聽(tīng)得見(jiàn)。不過(guò),那聲音極其模糊、微弱,讓他覺(jué)得自己跟那位人類的忠實(shí)伙伴相隔甚遠(yuǎn)。偶爾會(huì)有一只公雞從睡夢(mèng)中醒來(lái),拖長(zhǎng)聲音喔喔喔亂叫一通——那聲音非常遙遠(yuǎn),像是來(lái)自大山里的某戶農(nóng)家,可在他聽(tīng)來(lái)像是來(lái)自夢(mèng)鄉(xiāng)。偶爾還可以聽(tīng)見(jiàn)蟋蟀的一兩聲悲鳴,或者聽(tīng)見(jiàn)附近沼澤地那兒傳來(lái)帶著喉音的呱呱的蛙鳴——那青蛙像是在輾轉(zhuǎn)反側(cè),睡得不踏實(shí)。
下午聽(tīng)到的那些關(guān)于妖魔鬼怪的故事,此時(shí)一下子涌進(jìn)了他的腦海。夜色愈來(lái)愈黑暗,天上的星星似乎愈加遙遠(yuǎn),偶爾飛來(lái)幾朵烏云會(huì)將星星遮蓋得完全看不見(jiàn)。他從來(lái)沒(méi)有感到過(guò)如此孤單,如此凄慘。此外,他正在走近一個(gè)傳說(shuō)中經(jīng)常鬧鬼的地方。路中央有一棵巨無(wú)霸郁金香樹(shù),像一個(gè)巨靈,鶴立雞群般站在一片樹(shù)木當(dāng)間,仿佛一座分界碑。這棵樹(shù)的樹(shù)枝扭曲多瘤、奇形怪狀,每根樹(shù)枝都又粗又大,相當(dāng)于普通樹(shù)的樹(shù)干,有的彎下來(lái)幾乎觸著地面,有的高高伸到空中去。此樹(shù)跟倒霉的安德烈那悲慘的遭遇有諸多聯(lián)系,因此,鄉(xiāng)親們一致稱它為“安德烈少校之樹(shù)”。老百姓見(jiàn)到它,有著復(fù)雜的心緒,既敬畏又迷信,一方面同情那個(gè)與大樹(shù)同名的人不幸的命運(yùn),另一方面則是受到了相關(guān)的鬼怪故事的影響——那些故事講的是些靈異現(xiàn)象,凄凄慘慘,叫人傷感。
伊卡博德走近這棵可怕的大樹(shù)時(shí),便吹口哨壯膽。他覺(jué)得有人也在吹口哨作為回應(yīng)——其實(shí),那只不過(guò)是一陣風(fēng)掃過(guò)干枝枯葉發(fā)出的聲響。又走近一些,他覺(jué)得好像看見(jiàn)一樣白乎乎的東西倒掛在樹(shù)干那兒,嚇得他不禁勒住馬韁,停止了吹口哨。但定睛仔細(xì)一看,才發(fā)現(xiàn)那是樹(shù)身遭了雷擊,樹(shù)皮被剝掉,露出了樹(shù)皮下白白的木頭。突然,他聽(tīng)到了一聲悲嘆,嚇得他上下牙直打架,膝蓋抖得直磕碰馬鞍。其實(shí),那只不過(guò)是在微風(fēng)中,兩根巨大的樹(shù)枝相互摩擦產(chǎn)生的聲音罷了。最后,他總算有驚無(wú)險(xiǎn)地從大樹(shù)旁走了過(guò)去。但是,前邊還會(huì)有更多的險(xiǎn)情出現(xiàn)。
離這棵樹(shù)大約兩百碼的地方,有一條小溪橫過(guò)路面,流進(jìn)一個(gè)被稱為“威利沼澤谷”的幽谷里,那兒是一片濕地,樹(shù)木茂密。溪水上架了幾根粗大的原木,作為渡水之橋。道路的另一邊,在小溪流到樹(shù)林里去的地方,有一叢橡樹(shù)和栗樹(shù),樹(shù)身上布滿了密密匝匝的野葡萄藤,把那兒遮得像一個(gè)深洞,陰森森的。走過(guò)這座橋,那可是極為嚴(yán)峻的考驗(yàn)。倒霉的安德烈就是在那個(gè)地方被抓住的。想當(dāng)年,那些身強(qiáng)力壯的義勇騎兵,就是埋伏在這些栗樹(shù)和藤葛的掩蔽之下,出其不意地擒獲了他。自此,這兒就被人們認(rèn)作是鬼怪作祟之地,學(xué)童孤身一人走夜路經(jīng)過(guò)此處,無(wú)不膽戰(zhàn)心驚。
伊卡博德朝著溪水靠近時(shí),一顆心像打鼓般通通亂跳。不過(guò),他還是鼓足了全部勇氣,一連對(duì)他那匹馬的肋骨踢了十幾下,打算飛快地沖過(guò)這座橋??墒?,這個(gè)畜生耍起了犟脾氣,沒(méi)有聽(tīng)命朝前沖,而是來(lái)了一個(gè)橫向動(dòng)作,斜刺里沖向了樹(shù)籬。這一耽擱,叫伊卡博德心里更害怕了。他將另一側(cè)的韁繩猛地一勒,用另一只腳狠踢馬肚。他再怎么樣都無(wú)濟(jì)于事。那匹馬固然改了方向,然而卻是躥到路的另一側(cè),沖進(jìn)一片樹(shù)莓和赤楊木混為一處的雜樹(shù)叢。這位教書先生又是用鞭子抽,又是用腳后跟猛磕“火藥”那瘦骨嶙峋的肚皮,使得它喘著粗氣、打著響鼻沖向前去,然而到了橋頭卻來(lái)了個(gè)猛剎車,讓背上的騎手差點(diǎn)沒(méi)一頭倒栽下去。而就在此時(shí)此刻,伊卡博德靈敏的耳朵聽(tīng)見(jiàn)橋旁邊的爛泥地傳來(lái)踢踏踢踏的腳步聲。他發(fā)現(xiàn)在那兒的溪水旁邊,在黑魆魆的樹(shù)影里有樣龐然大物,奇形怪狀的,赫然矗立在那邊。它一動(dòng)也不動(dòng),就像一個(gè)巨大的怪物,似乎在暗影里積聚力量,準(zhǔn)備一下子撲過(guò)來(lái)襲擊這個(gè)路人。
這位學(xué)究嚇得魂飛魄散、毛發(fā)倒立。這該如何是好?掉頭跑吧,已為時(shí)過(guò)晚。再說(shuō),要真是妖怪,它可會(huì)騰云駕霧,難道能逃出它的手心嗎?于是乎,這位學(xué)究壯起膽子、鼓足勇氣,結(jié)巴著問(wèn)了一聲:“你是何人?”對(duì)方?jīng)]有回答。他又問(wèn)了一聲,這次的聲音更為忐忑。對(duì)方仍沒(méi)有回答。他見(jiàn)狀,又一次猛踢頑固的“火藥”的肚皮,一面閉上眼睛,帶著一種并非自愿的熱情,高唱起贊美詩(shī)。這時(shí),那個(gè)駭人的影影綽綽的東西倏然采取了行動(dòng),一跳便跳到了路當(dāng)間。雖然夜色茫茫,周圍一片漆黑,那個(gè)不知來(lái)歷的東西的形狀基本還是可以辨得清的。那東西好像是個(gè)騎兵,身軀龐大,騎在一匹身子骨強(qiáng)健的黑馬上。這位騎兵既沒(méi)有表示惡意也沒(méi)有表示善意,只是淡然地沿著道路的一側(cè)前行,慢悠悠走在“火藥”瞎眼的那一面——此時(shí),“火藥”受了驚后胡來(lái)的那股勁兒已經(jīng)過(guò)去。
伊卡博德對(duì)這位半夜三更突然出現(xiàn)的陌生旅伴并無(wú)好感,心里想到“布魯姆勇士”和黑森騎兵賽馬的那段經(jīng)歷,于是便催動(dòng)坐騎,打算把這位旅伴甩在后面。然而,這個(gè)陌生人也催馬前行,和他保持同樣的步調(diào)。伊卡博德勒一勒韁繩,讓馬慢下來(lái),想讓陌生人頭前走,而對(duì)方也依樣照搬。伊卡博德的心沉到了谷底,鼓一鼓勁,想再次高唱贊美詩(shī),可這次嘴發(fā)干,舌頭像粘在了上顎上,一句歌詞也唱不出來(lái)。這個(gè)旅伴糾纏不去,陰森、固執(zhí)、沉默不語(yǔ),顯得神秘而可怕。過(guò)了沒(méi)多大一會(huì)兒,叫人毛骨悚然的謎底就揭開(kāi)了。在登上一塊隆起的高地時(shí),在天空的映襯下,那個(gè)旅伴的身形趨于明朗——只見(jiàn)他又高又大,身披斗篷。伊卡博德發(fā)現(xiàn)對(duì)方竟然沒(méi)有頭顱,這一嚇差點(diǎn)沒(méi)被嚇?biāo)?!接下?lái)的發(fā)現(xiàn)更叫他驚魂難定——對(duì)方那顆本應(yīng)該安在肩膀上的頭顱,卻被他放在了身前的馬鞍上!他恐懼到了極點(diǎn),對(duì)“火藥”腳踢和鞭抽并舉,一下下雨點(diǎn)般落在它身上,希望一舉將這位旅伴甩在身后??墒牵莻€(gè)妖怪也全身發(fā)力,風(fēng)馳電掣地緊隨其后。雙方一前一后一路狂奔,哪管山高林密,所到之處只見(jiàn)馬蹄下碎石亂飛、火星四濺。伊卡博德沒(méi)命地逃竄,瘦長(zhǎng)的身子俯下去,貼在馬頭上,又輕又薄的衣服迎風(fēng)飛舞。
轉(zhuǎn)眼,雙騎已來(lái)到了轉(zhuǎn)向睡谷的那條路??墒?,“火藥”卻像中了邪,沒(méi)有走這條路,卻沖向相反的方向,順山勢(shì)而下,一路向左。此路穿過(guò)一條遍地黃沙的空谷,大約有四分之一英里的路處于大樹(shù)的濃蔭遮蓋之下,在那兒要過(guò)一架小橋(此橋因出現(xiàn)在鬼怪故事里而聞名于世)。過(guò)了橋,是一片起伏不平的綠油油的山坡,坡頂上就是那座墻壁粉白的教堂了。
在這場(chǎng)追逐之中,“火藥”受驚狂奔,反而叫它那騎術(shù)不佳的騎手受益匪淺。不過(guò),在空谷里跑到半路,馬鞍的肚帶突然斷了,伊卡博德覺(jué)得馬鞍在身下慢慢溜走。他一把抓住鞍頭,想將馬鞍固定住,卻徒勞無(wú)益。幸虧他眼明手快,抱住了“火藥”的脖子,才保住了一條小命,而馬鞍落地,只聽(tīng)咔嚓一聲,被追兵踩在了馬蹄下。就在這一瞬間,他的腦海里閃過(guò)了漢斯·馮·里普爾雷霆大怒的鏡頭——那可是漢斯星期天去做禮拜時(shí)用的馬鞍呀!不過(guò),眼下可不是為這點(diǎn)小事?lián)牡臅r(shí)候——那個(gè)妖怪跟在后面,追得正緊呢!再說(shuō),他騎術(shù)欠佳,不知費(fèi)了多少氣力才沒(méi)有摔下馬去,時(shí)而滑向一側(cè),時(shí)而又滑向另一側(cè),有時(shí)在馬背的骨峰上猛烈地顛上顛下,他真怕會(huì)把自己顛得散了架。
這時(shí)候,林中出現(xiàn)了一片空地,讓他高興起來(lái),他希望教堂的那座橋就在眼前不遠(yuǎn)的地方。但見(jiàn)溪水里閃爍著銀星的映影,微微晃動(dòng)著,由此判斷他沒(méi)有猜錯(cuò)。他看到教堂的粉墻在前方的樹(shù)叢里朦朦朧朧地忽隱忽現(xiàn)。他想起“布魯姆勇士”跟這個(gè)妖怪賽馬,就是到了這個(gè)地方,妖怪突然銷聲匿跡了,于是心想:“只要能跑到橋頭那兒,就平安無(wú)事了。”就在這時(shí),他聽(tīng)見(jiàn)那匹黑馬趕到了身后,氣喘吁吁,鼻中噴著熱氣——他甚至覺(jué)得那熱氣都噴到了自己身上。他對(duì)著“火藥”的肚皮又是一陣亂踢,踢得“火藥”沖到橋上,踏得橋板咚咚響,再一躍便抵達(dá)了對(duì)岸。這時(shí)候,他回過(guò)頭來(lái)查看情況——按說(shuō),那個(gè)追兵會(huì)化為一團(tuán)鬼火消失不見(jiàn)的。誰(shuí)料,他卻看見(jiàn)那個(gè)妖怪踏著馬鐙立起身子,提起他的頭顱要朝他扔過(guò)來(lái)。
伊卡博德急忙躲閃,要躲開(kāi)那可怕的拋物,但已經(jīng)來(lái)不及了。那玩意兒砰的一聲巨響砸在了他的腦殼上,砸得他一個(gè)倒栽蔥落在了塵埃里。“火藥”、黑馬以及那個(gè)妖怪騎兵旋風(fēng)似的從他旁邊一掃而過(guò)。
次日早晨,人們發(fā)現(xiàn)那匹老馬沒(méi)有了馬鞍,韁繩拖在蹄子下,在主人家的大門外悠閑地啃青草。早飯時(shí),伊卡博德沒(méi)有露面,午飯時(shí)仍不見(jiàn)其人。學(xué)生們來(lái)到學(xué)校里沒(méi)人管,便跑到溪水旁,悠閑自在地玩耍起來(lái),而那位教書先生遲遲不見(jiàn)來(lái)。漢斯·馮·里普爾這下子有點(diǎn)慌了神,開(kāi)始為可憐的伊卡博德感到擔(dān)心,也在擔(dān)心他的那副馬鞍。大家伙兒出發(fā)去尋找他的下落,經(jīng)過(guò)艱辛的努力,終于發(fā)現(xiàn)了他的蹤跡。在通往教堂的一段路上,他們找到了那副馬鞍,發(fā)現(xiàn)它被踩在了爛泥里。有幾行馬蹄印通向橋頭,在路面上陷得很深,顯然是瘋狂的奔跑所留下的蹄印。過(guò)了橋,有一段溪水水面較寬,此處的水又深又黑,人們?cè)诎渡险业搅瞬恍业囊量ú┑碌拿弊樱赃€有一個(gè)摔得稀巴爛的南瓜。
大家開(kāi)始在溪水里打撈,但那位教書先生卻死不見(jiàn)尸。漢斯·馮·里普爾以他的遺產(chǎn)處理人的身份,檢查了他的那個(gè)包袱,里面包著他的所有財(cái)物——兩件半襯衫、兩條圍巾、一兩雙羊毛襪子、一條舊的燈芯絨褲子、一把銹剃刀、一本卷邊折角的贊美詩(shī)集和一只舊音笛。至于學(xué)校里的書籍和家具,那些全都是公家的,只有科頓·馬瑟的那本《巫術(shù)史》、一本《新英格蘭年鑒》和一本圓夢(mèng)算命的書是屬于伊卡博德的。列在最后的那本書里夾著一張大大的紙,紙上有幾句詩(shī),原打算是獻(xiàn)給馮·塔塞爾家的那個(gè)女繼承人的,不知抄自何處,字跡歪斜、墨跡斑斑。這些巫術(shù)書和歪詩(shī)被漢斯·馮·里普爾一把火給燒掉了。他鐵下心,從今往后再也不送自己的孩子去上學(xué)了,覺(jué)得學(xué)讀這樣的書、寫這樣的詩(shī),真不知會(huì)有什么好結(jié)果。至于說(shuō)那位教書先生的錢囊,他前一兩天才拿到了季薪,不管有多少,反正他失蹤的時(shí)候,那些錢就在他身上。
到了星期天,人們來(lái)教堂做禮拜,對(duì)這樁神秘的事件進(jìn)行了種種猜測(cè),有的聚集于墓地里,有的到小橋邊,有的則圍在發(fā)現(xiàn)帽子和南瓜的地方,睜大眼睛細(xì)看,你一言我一語(yǔ)地議論紛紛。大伙兒想起布魯威爾的遭遇,想起“布魯姆勇士”的經(jīng)歷,想起種種諸如此類的事件,絞盡腦汁地進(jìn)行了通盤考慮,又把它們跟這樁案子的各種跡象做了比較,最后無(wú)奈地?fù)u搖頭,斷定伊卡博德是被那個(gè)黑森騎兵擄走了。鑒于伊卡博德是個(gè)單身漢,又不欠誰(shuí)的錢,他的事也就沒(méi)人再操心了。學(xué)校遷到了睡谷的另一個(gè)地方,另一位學(xué)究取代了他的位置。
幾年之后,一個(gè)年老的農(nóng)夫去紐約參觀(以上所講的鬼怪故事就是出自此人之口),返家后,帶來(lái)了一個(gè)消息,說(shuō)伊卡博德·克萊恩仍活著,還說(shuō)伊卡博德·克萊恩當(dāng)初之所以要離開(kāi)這一帶,一是因?yàn)樗ε履莻€(gè)妖怪和漢斯·馮·里普爾,二是由于突遭那位女繼承人的拒絕,讓他無(wú)地自容;而今,他住在一個(gè)遙遠(yuǎn)的地方,一邊教學(xué),一邊學(xué)習(xí)法律,步入了律師界,從事政治,參加競(jìng)選,為報(bào)社撰稿,最終當(dāng)上了十英鎊法庭(14)的法官。在自己的情敵銷聲匿跡之后不久,“布魯姆勇士”便得意揚(yáng)揚(yáng)地跟如花似玉的卡特麗娜步入了婚姻的殿堂。每當(dāng)有人講起伊卡博德的神秘失蹤,他的樣子就像個(gè)知情人似的,一提到那個(gè)南瓜,他便笑得肚子疼。于是,一些人便懷疑他了解內(nèi)情,而他硬是不肯說(shuō)出來(lái)。
然而,對(duì)于這種事情,年老的村婦們是最有發(fā)言權(quán)的,她們堅(jiān)稱伊卡博德是被鬼?yè)镒吡?。冬天的傍晚,?dāng)?shù)厝藝鸲?,這件事成了大家津津樂(lè)道的談資。那座橋也更加引人注意,使得迷信妖怪的人敬而遠(yuǎn)之,這恐怕就是近幾年讓那條路改道的原因了——現(xiàn)在去教堂可走磨坊水塘邊。那座學(xué)校沒(méi)有了人氣,很快就破敗了,據(jù)說(shuō)那個(gè)不幸的學(xué)究已化為鬼魂,經(jīng)常在那兒出沒(méi)。寧?kù)o的夏日傍晚時(shí)分,農(nóng)夫從田中歸來(lái),常常會(huì)產(chǎn)生幻覺(jué),仿佛聽(tīng)見(jiàn)遠(yuǎn)處傳來(lái)他的聲音,聽(tīng)見(jiàn)他用凄涼的調(diào)子在唱贊美詩(shī),其聲其調(diào)回蕩在沉寂而靜謐的睡谷里。
附筆
在尼克博克先生的遺稿里發(fā)現(xiàn)的材料
以上的故事是我到曼哈托斯古城參加一個(gè)社團(tuán)會(huì)議,在會(huì)場(chǎng)上聽(tīng)人講述的,幾乎一字不差。當(dāng)時(shí)與會(huì)的有許多德高望重、地位顯赫的市民。講述者是一個(gè)生性快活、樣子寒酸但具有紳士風(fēng)度的老頭,他穿一身椒鹽色衣服,臉上有一種悲涼的幽默神情(我猜度他一定是個(gè)窮人)——他講得繪聲繪色,以博眾人一笑。故事講完后,大家哈哈大笑,頗為欣賞,其中最喜歡這個(gè)故事的是兩三個(gè)副市議員(這幾個(gè)人開(kāi)會(huì)時(shí)一直在睡覺(jué))。不過(guò),有個(gè)高個(gè)子老人卻聲色不動(dòng)。此人緊鎖劍眉,自始至終表情嚴(yán)肅,不茍言笑,時(shí)而雙臂交叉,時(shí)而歪著腦袋凝視,時(shí)而低頭沉思,似乎在心里思考著一個(gè)個(gè)疑點(diǎn)。他屬于有心計(jì)的那種人,從不隨便發(fā)笑捧場(chǎng),除非對(duì)方有響當(dāng)當(dāng)?shù)睦碛勺屗?mdash;—該理由必須合情理、合邏輯。待全場(chǎng)的人笑聲消退,人們都靜下來(lái)的時(shí)候,只見(jiàn)他把一個(gè)胳膊肘架在椅子扶手上,另一只手叉腰,腦袋很有分寸地微微一斜,發(fā)出了疑問(wèn):這個(gè)故事有何意義?想說(shuō)明什么問(wèn)題?
講述者剛把酒杯舉到嘴邊,想喝口酒潤(rùn)潤(rùn)焦渴的喉嚨,一聽(tīng)問(wèn)話便停了下來(lái),用充滿敬意的目光看了一眼提問(wèn)者,然后將酒杯又慢慢地放回到了桌子上,解釋說(shuō)本故事是想以嚴(yán)密的邏輯性證明——
“人生并非處處有笑聲,處處有歡樂(lè)——我們只需講個(gè)笑話,就會(huì)有笑聲,就會(huì)有歡樂(lè);
“因此,故事的主人公跟鬼騎兵賽馬,那就叫他遭遇許多波折和磨難。
“于是,鄉(xiāng)村教師被荷蘭裔女繼承人拒絕,象征了向國(guó)家的高度發(fā)展邁出了一步。”
那位不茍言笑的老先生聽(tīng)得一頭霧水,被這種三段論的推理法搞得完全糊涂了,于是便將眉頭皺得更緊了。身穿椒鹽色衣服的講述者用眼睛盯著他,露出幾分得意的神情。末了,老先生說(shuō)故事倒是挺好的,只是他覺(jué)得有點(diǎn)夸張,而且他心里仍有一兩處疑點(diǎn)。
“實(shí)不相瞞,先生,”講述者說(shuō)道,“對(duì)于這個(gè)故事的真實(shí)性,我自己也是不太相信的。”
——迪德里克·尼克博克
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