Page:Tea, a poem.pdf/22

22 the stream, not far from the church, was, formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that laid to it, and the bride itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees which cast a gloom about it, even in the thethe [sic] day-time; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favourite haunts of the headless horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliver in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning from his forry into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree tops with withwith [sic] a clap of thunder.

In my mind there is no position more positive and unexceptonable than that most Frenchmen, dead or alive, are born dancers. I came pounce upon