The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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 farmhouse; not that he had anything 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 everything.
