LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE. NUMBER I. THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY. Page 279.

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Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him
rather to pore over the current of life, than to plunge
into its tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were
a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the
land. In youth, perhaps, it is good for the observer
to run about the earth—to leave the track of his footsteps
far and wide—to mingle himself with the action
of numberless vicissitudes—and, finally, in some
calm solitude, to feed a musing spirit on all that he
has seen and felt. But there are natures too indolent,
or too sensitive, to endure the dust, the sunshine, or
the rain, the turmoil of moral and physical elements,
to which all the wayfarers of the world expose themselves.
For such a man, how pleasant a miracle,
could life be made to roll its variegated length by the
threshold of his own hermitage, and the great globe,
as it were, perform its revolutions and shift its thousand
scenes before his eyes without whirling him

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onward in its course. If any mortal be favored with
a lot analogous to this, it is the toll-gatherer. So, at
least, have I often fancied, while lounging on a bench
at the door of a small square edifice, which stands
between shore and shore in the midst of a long bridge.
Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the
sea; while above, like the life-blood through a great
artery, the travel of the north and east is continually
throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaid bench, I amuse
myself with a conception, illustrated by numerous
pencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day.

In the morning—dim, gray, dewy summer's
morn—the distant roll of ponderous wheels begins
to mingle with my old friend's slumbers, creaking
more and more harshly through the midst of his
dream, and gradually replacing it with realities.
Hardly conscious of the change from sleep to wakefulness,
he finds himself partly clad and throwing
wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant load
of hay. The timbers groan beneath the slow-revolving
wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen,
and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the
glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the
toll-house, is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade,
who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. The
toll is paid—creak, creak, again go the wheels, and
the huge hay-mow vanishes into the morning mist.
As yet, nature is but half awake, and familiar objects
appear visionary. But yonder, dashing from the
shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused
clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail,

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which has hurried onward at the same headlong, restless
rate, all through the quiet night. The bridge
resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on
without a pause, merely affording the toll-gatherer a
glimpse at the sleepy passengers, who now bestir their
torpid limbs, and snuff a cordial in the briny air. The
morn breathes upon them and blushes, and they forget
how wearily the darkness toiled away. And
behold now the fervid day, in his bright chariot, glittering
aslant over the waves, nor scorning to throw a
tribute of his golden beams on the toll-gatherer's
little hermitage. The old man looks eastward, and
(for he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage-coach
and the sun.

While the world is rousing itself, we may glance
slightly at the scene of our sketch. It sits above the
bosom of the broad flood, a spot not of earth, but in
the midst of waters, which rush with a murmuring
sound among the massive beams beneath. Over the
door is a weather-beaten board, inscribed with the rates
of toll, in letters so nearly effaced that the gilding of
the sunshine can hardly make them legible. Beneath
the window is a wooden bench, on which a long succession
of weary wayfarers have reposed themselves.
Peeping within doors, we perceive the whitewashed
walls bedecked with sundry lithographic prints and
advertisements of various import, and the immense
show-bill of a wandering caravan. And there sits
our good old toll-gatherer, glorified by the early sun-beams.
He is a man, as his aspect may announce,
of quiet soul, and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind,

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who, of the wisdom which the passing world scatters
along the wayside, has gathered a reasonable store.

Now the sun smiles upon the landscape, and earth
smiles back again upon the sky. Frequent, now, are
the travellers. The toll-gatherer's practised ear can
distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number
of its wheels, and how many horses beat the resounding
timbers with their iron tramp. Here, in a substantial
family chaise, setting forth betimes to take
advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and
his wife, with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting
gladsomely between them. The bottom of the chaise
is heaped with multifarious band-boxes and carpet
bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk,
dusty with yesterday's journey. Next appears a four-wheeled
carryall, peopled with a round half dozen of
pretty girls, all drawn by a single horse, and driven
by a single gentleman. Luckless wight, doomed,
through a whole summer day, to be the butt of mirth
and mischief among the frolicksome maidens! Bolt
upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man,
who, as he pays his toll, hands the toll-gatherer a
printed card to stick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced
traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles.
Now paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman
clad in black, with a meditative brow, as of one who,
whithersoever his steed might bear him, would still
journey through a mist of brooding thought. He is
a country preacher, going to labor at a protracted
meeting. The next object passing townward is a
butcher's cart, canopied with its arch of snow-white

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cotton. Behind comes a `sauceman,' driving a wagon
full of new potatoes, green ears of corn, beets,
carrots, turnips, and summer squashes; and next,
two wrinkled, withered, witch-looking old gossips, in
an antediluvian chaise, drawn by a horse of former
generations, and going to peddle out a lot of huckle-berries.
See there, a man trundling a wheelbarrow
load of lobsters. And now a milk-cart rattles briskly
onward, covered with green canvas, and conveying
the contributions of a whole herd of cows, in large
tin canisters. But let all these pay their toll and
pass. Here comes a spectacle that causes the old
toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if the travellers
brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome
influence all along the road.

It is a barouche of the newest style, the varnished
panels of which reflect the whole moving panorama
of the landscape, and show a picture, likewise, of our
friend, with his visage broadened, so that his meditative
smile is transformed to grotesque merriment.
Within, sits a youth, fresh as the summer morn, and
beside him a young lady in white, with white gloves
upon her slender hands, and a white veil flowing
down over her face. But methinks her blushing
cheek burns through the snowy veil. Another white-robed
virgin sits in front. And who are these, on
whom, and on all that appertains to them, the dust of
earth seems never to have settled? Two lovers,
whom the priest has blessed, this blessed morn, and
sent them forth, with one of the bridemaids, on the
matrimonial tour. Take my blessing too, ye happy

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ones! May the sky not frown upon you, nor clouds
bedew you with their chill and sullen rain! May the
hot sun kindle no fever in your hearts! May your
whole life's pilgrimage be as blissful as this first
day's journey, and its close be gladdened with even
brighter anticipations than those which hallow your
bridal night!

They pass; and ere the reflection of their joy has
faded from his face, another spectacle throws a melancholy
shadow over the spirit of the observing man.
In a close carriage sits a fragile figure, muffled carefully,
and shrinking even from the mild breath of
summer. She leans against a manly form, and his
arm enfolds her, as if to guard his treasure from
some enemy. Let but a few weeks pass, and when
he shall strive to embrace that loved one, he will
press only desolation to his heart.

And now has morning gathered up her dewy
pearls, and fled away. The sun rolls blazing through
the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool his face with.
The horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave
their glistening sides in short quick pantings, when
the reins are tightened at the toll-house. Glisten, too,
the faces of the travellers. Their garments are
thickly bestrewn with dust; their whiskers and hair
look hoary; their throats are choked with the dusty
atmosphere which they have left behind them. No
air is stirring on the road. Nature dares draw no
breath, lest she should inhale a stifling cloud of dust.
`A hot and dusty day!' cry the poor pilgrims, as
they wipe their begrimed foreheads, and woo the

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doubtful breeze which the river bears along with it.
`Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!' answers the sympathetic
toll-gatherer. They start again, to pass through
the fiery furnace, while he reënters his cool hermitage,
and besprinkles it with a pail of briny water
from the stream beneath. He thinks within himself,
that the sun is not so fierce here as elsewhere, and
that the gentle air doth not forget him in these sultry
days. Yes, old friend; and a quiet heart will make
a dog-day temperate. He hears a weary footstep,
and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who
sits down upon the hospitable bench, and removes
the hat from his wet brow. The toll-gatherer administers
a cup of cold water, and discovering his guest
to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in profitable
talk, uttering the maxims of a philosophy
which he has found in his own soul, but knows not
how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes
ready to resume his journey, he tells him a sovereign
remedy for blistered feet.

Now comes the noon-tide hour—of all the hours,
nearest akin to midnight; for each has its own calmness
and repose. Soon, however, the world begins to
turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch
of the day; when an accident impedes the march of
sublunary things. The draw being lifted to permit
the passage of a schooner, laden with wood from the
eastern forests, she sticks immovably, right athwart
the bridge! Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm,
a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. Here
are two sailors in a gig, with the top thrown back,

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both puffing cigars, and swearing all sorts of forecastle
oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly
dressed gentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board,
and she from a milliner's back room—the
aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And what are
the haughtiest of us, but the ephemeral aristocrats of
a summer's day? Here is a tin-pedler, whose glittering
ware bedazzles all beholders, like a travelling
meteor, or opposition sun; and on the other side a
seller of spruce beer, which brisk liquor is confined
in several dozen of stone bottles. Here come a
party of ladies on horseback, in green riding-habits,
and gentlemen attendant; and there a flock of sheep
for the market, pattering over the bridge with a multitudinous
clatter of their little hoofs. Here a Frenchman,
with a hand-organ on his shoulder; and there
an itinerant Swiss jeweller. On this side, heralded
by a blast of clarions and bugles, appears a train of
wagons, conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan;
and on that, a company of summer soldiers, marching
from village to village on a festival campaign,
attended by the `brass band.' Now look at the scene,
and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion,
the apparently insolvable riddle, in which individuals,
or the great world itself, seem often to be
involved. What miracle shall set all things right
again?

But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcass
through the chasm; the draw descends; horse and
foot pass onward, and leave the bridge vacant from
end to end. `And thus,' muses the toll-gatherer,

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`have I found it with all stoppages, even though the
universe seemed to be at a stand.' The sage old
man!

Far westward now, the reddening sun throws a
broad sheet of splendor across the flood, and to the
eyes of distant boatmen gleams brightly among the
timbers of the bridge. Strollers come from the town
to quaff the freshening breeze. One or two let down
long lines, and haul up flapping flounders, or cunners,
or small cod, or perhaps an eel. Others, and
fair girls among them, with the flush of the hot day
still on their cheeks, bend over the railing and watch
the heaps of sea-weed floating upward with the flowing
tide. The horses now tramp heavily along the
bridge, and wistfully bethink them of their stables.
Rest, rest, thou weary world! for to-morrow's round
of toil and pleasure will be as wearisome as to-day's
has been; yet both shall bear thee onward a day's
march of eternity. Now the old toll-gatherer looks
seaward, and discerns the light house kindling on a
far island, and the stars, too, kindling in the sky, as
if but a little way beyond; and mingling reveries of
Heaven with remembrances of Earth, the whole procession
of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage
which he has witnessed, seems like a flitting show of
phantoms for his thoughtful soul to muse upon.

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