midnight
It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod , heavy-hearted and crestfallen , pursued his travel homewards along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town , and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon . The hour was as dismal as himself . Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters , with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor under the land . In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear the barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man . Now and then , too , the long-drawn crowing of a cock , accidentally awakened , would sound far , far off , from some farm-house away among the hills ; but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear . No signs of life occurred near him , but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket , or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh , as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in his bed . All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection .