Twice Told Tales

  THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY.

  A SKETCH OF TRANSITORY LIFE.

  Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over thecurrent of life than to plunge into its tumultuous waves, noundesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some throngedthoroughfare of the land. In youth, perhaps, it is good for theobserver to run about the earth, to leave the track of his footstepsfar and wide, to mingle himself with the action of numberlessvicissitudes, and, finally, in some calm solitude to feed a musingspirit on all that he has seen and felt. But there are natures tooindolent or too sensitive to endure the dust, the sunshine or therain, the turmoil of moral and physical elements, to which all thewayfarers of the world expose themselves. For such a man how pleasanta miracle could life be made to roll its variegated length by thethreshold of his own hermitage, and the great globe, as it were,perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes before his eyeswithout whirling him onward in its course! If any mortal be favoredwith 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 smallsquare edifice which stands between shore and shore in the midst of along bridge. Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea,while above, like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel ofthe north and east is continually throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaidbench, I amuse myself with a conception, illustrated by numerouspencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day.

  In the morning--dim, gray, dewy summer's morn--the distant roll ofponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend's slumbers,creaking more and more harshly through the midst of his dream andgradually replacing it with realities. Hardly conscious of the changefrom sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwingwide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. Thetimbers groan beneath the slow-revolving wheels; one sturdy yeomanstalks beside the oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, bythe glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house isseen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some tenmiles long. The toll is paid; creak, creak, again go the wheels, andthe huge hay-mow vanishes into the morning mist. As yet nature is buthalf awake, and familiar objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashingfrom the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confusedclatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, which has hurriedonward at the same headlong, restless rate all through the quietnight. The bridge resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls onwithout a pause, merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at thesleepy passengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs and snuff acordial in the briny air. The morn breathes upon them and blushes, andthey forget how wearily the darkness toiled away. And behold now thefervid day in his bright chariot, glittering aslant over the waves,nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams on thetoll-gatherer's little hermitage. The old man looks eastward, and (forhe 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 sceneof our sketch. It sits above the bosom of the broad flood--a spot notof earth, but in the midst of waters which rush with a murmuring soundamong the massive beams beneath. Over the door is a weatherbeatenboard inscribed with the rates of toll in letters so nearly effacedthat the gilding of the sunshine can hardly make them legible. Beneaththe window is a wooden bench on which a long succession of wearywayfarers have reposed themselves. Peeping within-doors, we perceivethe whitewashed walls bedecked with sundry lithographic prints andadvertisements of various import and the immense show-bill of awandering caravan. And there sits our good old toll-gatherer,glorified by the early sunbeams. He is a man, as his aspect mayannounce, of quiet soul and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind, whoof the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the wayside hasgathered a reasonable store.

  Now the sun smiles upon the landscape and earth smiles back again uponthe sky. Frequent now are the travellers. The toll-gatherer'spractised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the numberof its wheels and how many horses beat the resounding timbers withtheir iron tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forthbetimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and hiswife with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely betweenthem. The bottom of the chaise is heaped with multifarious bandboxesand carpet-bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dustywith yesterday's journey. Next appears a four-wheeled carryall peopledwith a round half dozen of pretty girls, all drawn by a single horseand driven by a single gentleman. Luckless wight doomed through awhole summer day to be the butt of mirth and mischief among thefrolicsome maidens! Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visagedman who as he pays his toll hands the toll-gatherer a printed card tostick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be amanufacturer of pickles. Now paces slowly from timber to timber ahorseman clad in black, with a meditative brow, as of one who,whithersoever his steed might bear him, would still journey through amist of brooding thought. He is a country preacher going to labor at aprotracted meeting. The next object passing townward is a butcher'scart canopied with its arch of snow-white 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 bya horse of former generations and going to peddle out a lot ofhuckleberries. See, there, a man trundling a wheelbarrow-load oflobsters. And now a milk-cart rattles briskly onward, covered withgreen 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 thatcauses the old toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if thetravellers brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsomeinfluence all along the road. It is a barouche of the newest style,the varnished panels of which reflect the whole moving panorama of thelandscape, and show a picture, likewise, of our friend with his visagebroadened, so that his meditative smile is transformed to grotesquemerriment. Within sits a youth fresh as the summer morn, and besidehim a young lady in white with white gloves upon her slender hands anda white veil flowing down over her face. But methinks her blushingcheek burns through the snowy veil. Another white-robed virgin sits infront. 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 thepriest has blessed this blessed morn and sent them forth, with one ofthe bride-maids, on the matrimonial tour.--Take my blessing too, yehappy ones! May the sky not frown upon you nor clouds bedew you withtheir chill and sullen rain! May the hot sun kindle no fever in yourhearts! May your whole life's pilgrimage be as blissful as this firstday's journey, and its close be gladdened with even brighteranticipations than those which hallow your bridal-night! They pass,and ere the reflection of their joy has faded from his face anotherspectacle throws a melancholy shadow over the spirit of the observingman. In a close carriage sits a fragile figure muffled carefully andshrinking even from the mild breath of summer. She leans against amanly form, and his arm enfolds her as if to guard his treasure fromsome enemy. Let but a few weeks pass, and when he shall strive toembrace that loved one, he will press only desolation to his heart.

  And now has Morning gathered up her dewy pearls and fled away. The sunrolls blazing through the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool hisface with. The horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heavetheir glistening sides in short quick pantings when the reins aretightened at the toll-house. Glisten, too, the faces of thetravellers. Their garments are thickly bestrewn with dust; theirwhiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked with the dustyatmosphere which they have left behind them. No air is stirring on theroad. Nature dares draw no breath lest she should inhale a stiflingcloud of dust. "A hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims as theywipe their begrimed foreheads and woo the doubtful breeze which theriver bears along with it.--"Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!" answers thesympathetic toll-gatherer. They start again to pass through the fieryfurnace, while
he re-enters his cool hermitage and besprinkles it witha pail of briny water from the stream beneath. He thinks withinhimself that the sun is not so fierce here as elsewhere, and that thegentle 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 wearyfootstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who sits downupon the hospitable bench and removes the hat from his wet brow. Thetoll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water, and, discovering hisguest 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 ownsoul, but knows not how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes readyto resume his journey he tells him a sovereign remedy for blisteredfeet.

  Now comes the noontide hour--of all the hours, nearest akin tomidnight, for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, theworld begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiestepoch of the day, when an accident impedes the march of sublunarythings. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schoonerladen with wood from the Eastern forests, she sticks immovably rightathwart the bridge. Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm a throng ofimpatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two sailors in a gig withthe top thrown back, both puffing cigars and swearing all sorts offorecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly-dressedgentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board and she from amilliner's back room--the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And whatare the haughtiest of us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer'sday? Here is a tin-pedler whose glittering ware bedazzles allbeholders like a travelling meteor or opposition sun, and on the otherside a seller of spruce beer, which brisk liquor is confined inseveral dozen of stone bottles. Here conic a party of ladies onhorseback, in green ridings habits, and gentlemen attendant, and therea flock of sheep for the market, pattering over the bridge with amultitude nous clatter of their little hoofs; here a Frenchman with ahand-organ on his shoulder, and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller. Onthis side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles, appears a trainof wagons conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan; and on that acompany of summer soldiers marching from village to village on afestival campaign, attended by the "brass band." Now look at thescene, and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion, theapparently insolvable riddle, in which individuals, or the great worlditself, seem often to be involved. What miracle shall set all thingsright again?

  But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcase through the chasm;the draw descends; horse and foot pass onward and leave the bridgevacant from end to end. "And thus," muses the toll-gatherer, "have Ifound it with all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to be ata stand." The sage old man!

  Far westward now the reddening sun throws a broad sheet of splendoracross the flood, and to the eyes of distant boatmen gleams brightlyamong the timbers of the bridge. Strollers come from the town to quaffthe freshening breeze. One or two let down long lines and haul upflapping flounders or cunners or small cod, or perhaps an eel. Others,and fair girls among them, with the flush of the hot day still ontheir cheeks, bend over the railing and watch the heaps of seaweedfloating upward with the flowing tide. The horses now tramp heavilyalong the bridge and wistfully bethink them of their stables.--Rest,rest, thou weary world! for to-morrow's round of toil and pleasurewill be as wearisome as to-day's has been, yet both shall bear theeonward a day's march of eternity.--Now the old toll-gatherer looksseaward and discerns the lighthouse kindling on a far island, and thestars, too, kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond; and,mingling reveries of heaven with remembrances of earth, the wholeprocession of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he haswitnessed, seems like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtfulsoul to muse upon.