Ichabod Crane him from the back of his own horse and sending him "tumbling headlong into the dust." The next morning, Ichabod's hat is found abandoned near the church bell bridge and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. Ichabod is never seen in Sleepy Hollow again and is therefore presumed to have been spirited away by the Headless Horseman. Later, "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" suggests that Ichabod had been frightened by both the Horseman and the anticipated anger of
Ichabod Crane outshine Brom's. After the party breaks up, Ichabod remains behind for "a tête-à-tête with the heiress," where it is supposed that he makes a proposal of marriage to Katrina but, according to the narrator, "Something, however ... must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen," meaning that his proposal is refused, allegedly because her sole purpose in courting him was either to test or to increase Brom's desire for her. Therefore Ichabod leaves the house "with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather