The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 35
POSTSCRIPT,
FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER.
The preceding tale is given, almost in
the precise words in which I heard it re-
lated 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
humorous 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-look-
ing 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 turn-
ing a doubt over in his mind. He was
one of your wary men, who never laugh,
but on 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 refresh-
ment after his toils, paused for a moment,
looked at his inquirer with an air of in-
finite deference, and, lowering the glass
slowly to the table, observed, that the
story was intended most logically to
prove:—
I That there is no situation in life but
has its advantages and pleasures—pro-
vided 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.
1 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 expla-
nation, being sorely puzzled by the
ratiocination of the syllogism; while,
methought, the one in pepper-and-salt
eyed him with something of a tri-
umphant leer. At length he observed,
that all this was very well, but still he
thought the story a little on the ex-
travagant—there were one or two points
on which he had his doubts.
I Faith, sir," replied the story-teller,
" as to that matter, I don't believe one
half of it myself." D. K.
