The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank
deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large
extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added
many 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
 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |